Immigration by the Numbers

[question everything]

Someone sent me this link

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4094926727128068265&q=numbersusa&hl=en

what do DUers think of this?

[LBJDemocrat]

1. Perfectly reasonable

Immigration is just a twist of the knife, with the stab wound being outsourcing and globalization.

And illegal immigration is not the only problem. H1-Bs for highly skilled foreign workers is helping increase unemployment among American college graduates.

The guy's credentials seem shady, though. Wikipedia says he has links to racist groups.

[question everything]

2. Thanks. This is what I wondered

about any racist undertones.

You are right about H1-B visas. Several weeks ago they were grabbed in one day.

[pnorman]

4. Here's what the SPLC has to say about Roy Beck:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=93

This bears careful study, despite his "credentials". But his assertion that the "Middle Class" is being destroyed by IMMIGRATION (legal & illegal), is waaaay off base. It's the systematic weakening and even destruction of UNIONS that's doing that.

"Until we get real wage levels down much closer to the Brazils and Koreas, we cannot pass along productivity gains to workers wages and still be competitive"

pnorman

[KamaAina]

31. Mellon Scaife funding racists? I'm shocked. Shocked!

:sarcasm:

The principal funding arm of the movement, U.S. Inc., is a Tanton creation, and millions of dollars in financing comes from just a few of his allies, far-right foundations like those controlled by the family of Richard Mellon Scaife....

In fact, many anti-immigration groups have been growing harder- and harder-line since 1998, when they first began working together with open white supremacists. Today, many of their leading officials have joined racist organizations.

:puke: :puke: :puke:

[pnorman]

33. "John H. Tanton". I missed one in my first glance at that website. Thanks!

I now have another name to Google, and it's coming up with interesting info so far. Earlier today, I had replied to a friend in my union who had sent me a very similar video. Understandably, such jingoistic racism can resonate well in union circles, and needs to be countered with hard knowledge.

pnorman

[EVDebs]

3. I heard that the 'carrying capacity' of the US was 200 million

and we're already far beyond that. World 'carrying capacity' is also limited. Book Plan B 2.0 investigates this concept. Sierra Club was throttled by this debate and still hasn't really recovered from it. Time will tell.

[dave_p]

6. The US is nowhere near its carrying capacity

The concept's rather redundant in developed countries anyway because we rely on international specialization and exchange. The world does probably have one, though it looks likely that we'll have learned to stop increasing our numbers before we hit it, provided we learn to apply our technological advances responsibly and fairly and treat the place with respect.

[Selatius]

7. That's true in certain terms but not in other areas.

Water is one such commodity that is still largely derived from local sources and aquifers, as opposed to being imported from the outside. Water purification is still a local matter as well. The most pressing issue here is not only privatization of water utilities and price gouging by private corporations that have bought the utilities but overconsumption of water supplies. In Nevada, there is a growing conflict between rural farmers and residents and cities like Las Vegas over increasingly tight water supplies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4719473.stm

[dave_p]

8. Oh yes, there's certainly damage

Putting the right policies in place cand minimize that. It's not the overall weight of numbers that's the problem so much as population distribution, poor (absent?) planning and a winner-takes-all approach to resources. We're not unsustainable, we just accept an unsustainable way of life.

[EVDebs]

19. 14 Amendment allows you to live where you want, even if the environment can't sustain you

We were sustainable at one point, but no longer; that point was reached in the '70s.

[dave_p]

22. It doesn't say government can't plan & act

People in developed countries aren't unsustainable because of their numbers, they're unsustainable because of their behavior. Getting rid of 100 million Americans seems a rather drastic step. I'd rather make Americans sustainable (it'd be a first for the post-1607 newcomers).

[EVDebs]

23. ICE, formerly FEMA, concentration camps in your state

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/femaconcentrationcamplocations07sep05.shtml

Looks like the numbers to me. They'll round up either illegal immigrants or home-grown dissidents or both. Enjoy.

See the ICE site

About Us
http://www.ice.gov/about/index.htm

"Created in March 2003, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the largest investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The agency was created after 9/11, by combining the law enforcement arms of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and the former U.S. Customs Service, to more effectively enforce our immigration and customs laws and to protect the United States against terrorist attacks. ICE does this by targeting illegal immigrants: the people, money and materials that support terrorism and other criminal activities. ICE is a key component of the DHS “layered defense” approach to protecting the nation. "

The concentration camps were formerly under FEMA control. Martial law, anyone ? "Plan and act" indeed LOL !

[dave_p]

25. What's this got to do with anything?

I talk about strategic planning for sustainable land use, you start talking about concentration camps? If an issue that affects millions is just a joke to you, go and bother someone else.

[EVDebs]

35. Kneejerk attacks to my posts...you didn't read any of it did you ? Read about Marin ICE raids...

Marin County Responds to Immigration Raids
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/03/10/18375297.php

ICE Raids Meatpacking Plants in Six States; Effects Remain to be Seen
http://www.dmiblog.net/archives/2006/12/ice_raids_meatpacking_plants_i.html

Indeed, 'what's that got to do with anything'. Sheeeesh.

BTW, if you're supporting the 'conventional wisdom' that carrying capacity is infinitely expandable in the US ...

"Conventional wisdom suggests that because of technology and trade, human carrying capacity is infinitely expandable and therefore virtually irrelevant to demography and development planning. By contrast, this article argues that ecological carrying capacity remains the fundamental basis for demographic accounting. A fundamental question for ecological economics is whether remaining stocks of natural capital are adequate to sustain the anticipated load of the human economy into the next century. Since mainstream (neoclassical) models are blind to ecological structure and function, they cannot even properly address this question",

then please read this article:

Revisiting Carrying Capacity:
Area-Based Indicators of Sustainability
by William E. Rees, The University of British Columbia

http://dieoff.org/page110.htm

showing what conventional planners and economists ignore : carrying capacity.

[dave_p]

37. Nope, I never said anything about infinite

You were the one who introduced a 1960 projection that showed infinite population growth 20 years hence.

Population and capacity are both very finite. And the main burden on resources from now on isn't population growth, its per capita consumption, in which the US leads. But you just clutch at the easiest straw and whine on about population, invoking a nonsense projection that broke down in the 1970s.

So what's your answer? Keep the US green and pleasant for the 203 million of 1970 to go on wasting the world's resources with even wilder abandon because that's so obviously what the country can carry, deport the other 98 million, and to hell with the rest of the world? What are you going to do to stop them getting rich and consuming stuff, bomb them into the Stone Age?

[EVDebs]

38. So you want the US to adopt Chinese birth restrictions and abortion laws ??

That seems to be your answer if you want unlimited immigration.

"Population and capacity are both very finite." So is the US land mass and it's ability to be the phonebooth you wish to stuff. I will reprint the link to Robert Samuelson's excellent article The Hard Truth of Immigration

The Hard Truth of Immigration: No society has a boundless capacity to accept newcomers, especially when many of them are poor or unskilled workers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100266/site/newsweek /

"...To make immigration succeed, we need (paradoxically) to control immigration."

This is true ecologically and economically.

[dave_p]

60. I never said unlimited anything

Why the heck would I want Chinese population controls? I'm not the one afraid of US population growth, you are. So how would you get it to to the 203 million of 1970 or keep it at today's 289 million (legal residents) or 301 million (all residents)?

Finite isn't the same as constant. No landmass has a fixed carrying capacity until technology's exhausted its capacity to raise productivity: the capacity of the US is many times what it was in 1800 or 1900, because technology's advanced, and so has our ability to avoid its pitfalls. 10,000 years ago the world's carrying capacity was maybe 10 million at the prevailing level of human technology. 1000 years ago it was under 500 million. Now we're 6,600 million. Go figure.

Nor did I say anything about unlimited immigration: all societies regulate inflows to some extent, just as they all (apart from the odd poorly-developed hermit kingdom) allow some immigration. Where immigration's gone wrong it's because governments have failed to manage it humanely and effectively, not because they broke some imagined ultimate population size constraint.

And note that Samuelson's not taking about any fixed population, he's talking about the rate at which society can absorb the annual flow. You'll notice he also proposes legal status for illegal immigrants already here: he isn't advocating kneejerk fear of population growth for the sake of some arbitrary size limit.

[EVDebs]

18. The current system says we'll need 5 planet earths to keep up...

Maybe you're getting your numbers from 'string theory' or somewhere else with 11 potential dimensions. In the real world calculus's populations s-curve shows us that you can't stuff a phone booth too full, like we're doing now. Just because India and China elites have the US for an immigration 'pressure release valve' doesn't change what's obvious.

Journal of Online Mathematics and its Applications
http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/4/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=481&bodyId=622

"The title of the 1960 paper by von Foerster, Mora, and Amiot was "Doomsday: Friday, 13 November A. D. 2026." How close was your prediction of Doomsday to theirs? "

Indeed. We've well past a US carrying capacity due to the lifestyle choices we've made; the problem is dear dave that the rest of the world is adopting our lifestyle, and by this admission we've begun using up the limiting factors in these equations, hence my reference to an old prediction of 1970 for when the US passed its carrying capacity. Oddly enough in the '70s we became an oil import-dependent country also. Go figure.

[dave_p]

21. Doomsday got postponed

In the real world half a century of improving demographic data show us that the phone booth's attracting fewer new occupants as time goes by. I blame cellphones. The population S-curve shows that numbers slow regardless of ecological constraints: it goes with prosperity, opportunity and mobility, as von Foerster, Mora & Amiot hinted in their lighthearted inquiry:

Since today man's environment becomes less and less influenced by "natural forces" and is more and more defined by social forces determined by man, he himself can take control over his fate in this matter, as well as he has done in almost all areas where the activity of the individual has influenced his own kind.

The authors considered it "extraordinarily difficult" to establish a "peoplo-stat" to regulate people's numbers. They were wrong because it was there all along: like Soylent Green, it's people. Iran halved its birth-rate in the 1990s principally by empowering women to control their fertility through education. India and China don't need the US for a migration release valve because they're already approaching the end of rapid population growth.

Yes, the US became an oil-importer in the 70s, yet it's still there 100m people later and despite burning its way through the stuff like there's no tomorrow. Yes, the problem's our lifestyle, and those who lead the assault on the planet's resources need to set an example rather than claiming everything for themselves.

[EVDebs]

24. Yeah, hey, how's that Soylent Green taste ? LOL ! nt

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Selatius]

27. I read somewhere that if you wanted to bring down a population, you urbanize it.

For some reason, when a population becomes urbanized like those in Europe or Japan, population growth either stagnates or, in many cases, starts declining. In the US, this would likely be the case as far as slow growth or even slow depopulation is concerned except for immigration. In the US, most of the growth of the population is due mainly to immigration. Whether or not the immigration is legal or not is something for another discussion.

[dave_p]

29. Yep, they tend to go together

As a rule urban birthrates fall first and rural ones follow a few decades later: town life opens up opportunities for advancement and (if you're fortunate) security in older age and also imposes housing and space limits. So we spend more on ourselves, enjoy new mobility and invest in the future in new ways.

Another phenomenon is that immigrants will tend to arrive with higher birthrates that then fall to local levels: immigrant stocks tend to rise exponentially in early generations because the earlier arrivals are growing at declining rates while being replenished by newcomers with initially high births (at a rate that also tends to fall over time with along with rates in the country of origin).

But all their rates tend downward over time. And as fertility in countries like Mexico also falls and local opportunities expand, there'll be fewer "surplus" people emigrating. People make the mistake of assuming these situations are static: in fact this is more like the crest of a wave that's passing round the world and is already past its peak.

[pitohui]

56. yeah rats in a bucket don't have as high a birth rate

that is a shitty way to get women to "choose" to stop breeding tho, destroy the wild, crowd everyone into a miserable shitty city, and then of course the depression rate soars (esp. among smart educated women) and they refuse to breed

isn't there an answer that doesn't require this high degree of human misery?

[EVDebs]

59. Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm

Read especially Ch 1's 'Learning from China'. The 2031 prediction mirrors the one from the video that started this thread. Very interesting. China also wants a US style auto industry and both China and India want to mimic US consumption patterns.

[dave_p]

63. Question is, what's the US going to do to set an example?

And keeping people out while the lucky few are even freer to squander resources and pollute the planet isn't good enough. China & India aren't "mimicking" anything, they're pursuing prosperity for their own people: it's what countries are supposed to do. Why should they sacrifice their future if Americans won't rein in their own consumption?

Don't just read Ch.1, read the rest too - points like "This interdependence can be managed to our mutual benefit only if we recognize that the term 'in the national interest' is in many ways obsolete".

[EVDebs]

68. Unliimited immigration isn't a solution dave

"Question is, what's the US going to do to set an example?" If you keep promoting unlimited immigration then adding more people into the US population does what according to Plan B 2.0 ? "In the national interest" still has some meaning to a few of us here at DU.

Others have come to the same conclusion, post #55 for example.



What are the immigration policies of places with the highest standards of living ? Maybe many would be better off in Canada (or Norway and Sweden than just going to the US).

[dave_p]

75. Again, who said unlimited anything?

And I'm well aware of such charts - they're pretty meaningless without a logarithmic scale on at least one axis. Yours is also obsolete: the current medium projection has world numbers peaking at 9.2 bn, only 40% above today. I'd put good money on it never even reaching that, but I'll be dead before I collect my winnings.

[dave_p]

62. They aren't moved, they choose to move

Birth rates decline in response to reduced mortality, education and opportunity for economic advancement & fertility control. Women have been reducing births for decades acoss the planet as death-rates decline. It's why the world population growth rate's been falling since the 1970s.

Urban space is only one factor (not even a major one) putting cities at the forefront of the trend. And the millions who migrate to cities every year aren't doing it to escape the destruction of the wild, they're doing it for opportunities: if they stayed put in the country there'd be even more destruction of the wild to create more low-productivity farmland.

[EVDebs]

69. Rates may fall but the total numeric NUMBER is what ?

Still advancing... by billions (world) and millions (US) annually, currently at about 6.6 billion worldwide, and rising.

US and World population counters
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

Also see post #45 and 55.

(Please note, when comparing RATES, logarithmic paper is needed)

A 'points' system is being installed

Immigration reform plan's points system doesn't add up, critics say
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-points24may24,1,2519434.story?track=rss

"Under the new system, the number of green cards allocated to relatives of either a U.S. citizen or a current green card holder would fall from 87% to 62%, while those based on occupation would nearly triple, from 13% to 38%."

Which favors skilled over unskilled workers. Numbers will be set but unlimited immigration will be a thing of the past. All very unfair except for business (money) interests point of view. As JFK once said, "The world is unfair..."

[dave_p]

74. The number is falling too

World population growth is presently 75 million a year, down from 85m less than two decades ago. By 2025 it's expected to be 60m and by 2040 it'll be nearer 40m if present trends of declining fertility persist.

US annual growth's presently 2.8 million, 1.2 million of it through net migration. The Census Bureau expects that to continue, while the UN (which also takes into account trends in sending countries) expects it to fall.

Yes, the world's unfair. So what are we going to do about it? Or is it only unfair to non-Americans? Strange talk from someone who seems bizarrely to imagine himself the incarnation of the guy who proclaimed his party "the party of the working class, regardless of color — the whole working class of the whole world".

[EVDebs]

34. No the problem's guys like you who'd zap me like one of Milgram's experiment

THAT's the 30% or so who I worry about. Someone calling me 'utterly ignorant' with 'simplistic paranoid fantasies' -- you're projecting, if you knew anything about psychology.

Milgram Experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

In psychology, psychological projection (or projection bias) is a defense mechanism in which one attributes to others one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the ego recognize them. The theory was developed by Sigmund Freud and further refined by his daughter Anna Freud.

The problem is immigration right now. Try to win an argument without ad hominem attacks. BTW, at least I'VE got a sense of humor.

[dave_p]

36. But if you don't know the facts, why prattle on?

Hey, be as ignorant as you like, just don't claim you've something useful to contribute if you haven't. If you're not interested in facts or rational argument don't waste others' time. The only thing you seem to know about the subject seems to derive from some dodgy video rant & a 47-year-old spoof article that you haven't even read.

Projection? Hardly. Your attitude's the one that leads people to vote for wars without checking the claims. You'd deport millions and stop the movement of millions more hoping for a decent living for their family on the basis of unreasoned homespun intuitions that you can't be bothered toi reseerch. I don't find that funny.

[EVDebs]

40. I'm trying to pursuade you to look at facts. Again, more projection. Seek help.

I won't deport anyone, ICE already is starting to DO just that.

The border with Mexico will probably be sealed, as media show more fence-hoppers. Those here will pay a high fine and the 'legalization' process will be adapted to accomodate them; the already damaged US economy--brought to us by globalizers like Thomas Friedman and yourself--will have to realize that only the elites are taken care of in that system.

If Mexico could take care of its own, would they stay ? If Indian educated elites have ready access to H1B visas and a plane ticket to the US, would they stay in India ? Oh wait, it seems those countries have reached something similar to 'carrying capacity' themselves.

Mexico would do well to create a similar H1B or H2B style visa program where legally they could cross the border. Otherwise US businesses illegally hiring them will end up being fined. One or the other, take your pick dave.

Ad hominem attacks don't make your arguments look too good btw.

[dave_p]

61. No, you look at the facts

If we're talking facts, we can communicate. If we're making barely coherent references to redundant mathematical explorations of doubtful seriousness, we're not going to get anywhere, and don't be surprised when people get pissed off.

Yes, Mexicans migrate, many to the US. And as Mexican population growth slows, fewer will be doing it. Indians do too, but they're finding ever more opportunities at home, and Europe (which is going to need people) is likely to offer a more attractive destination in future.

And why will their numbers stop growing? Not because they're dying off at an ever greater rate through haveing breached their "carrying capacity", but because birth-rates are falling through recognition that more children are surviving and living longer. It's happening worldwide, with numbers still rising (to lower peaks than those expected only decades ago).

Migration's a fact of life, but unless we screw up the rest of the world's development prospects the flows of the future are going to look very different to today's. Migrants move to where the opportunities are: if you don't want them leaving, give them the opportunities at home.

[Jim Warren]

57. straw man

"Your attitude's the one that leads people to vote for wars without checking the claims.'

Nothing he said could even be construed to make that claim. This whole side string has been full of straw man extensions.

[dave_p]

65. Whose?

Exponential growth... Infinite world population by 2027... 14th Amendment... concentration camps... unlimited immigration... Chinese population policy for the US

Myths & strawmen... I'm not the one picking dubious arbitrary factoids and attributing statements that were never made. This whole debate gets dragged off into strawman territory every time: those not thrown into horror at the numbers are for "open borders"; we claim carrying capacity is infinite; now it seems we want to throw the country open to everyone else while stopping Americans breeding.

It all gets very frustrating. It's an important issue. And having only one side using facts while the other scaremongers doesn't make for productive exchange.

[dave_p]

5. Simplistic and misleading

How come 1925-65 is the “Golden era”? Oh yes, because it was the era of quotas against anyone but northern Europeans. Why not 1925-75? The total added by the 1965 Act in its first decade was only 700,000, 0.35% of the population. Odd that we don’t remember 1965-75 so quite rosily. And that’s not because of immigration levels.

And let’s look at this period of economic prosperity. Well, there was a boom in the 1920s, though most of the real income growth predated 1926. Then we had the 1930s: not exactly an economic miracle. Then came the war with its peak growth rates. But from the 1950s to the 1970s US per capita GDP growth is outstripped by the economies of western Europe.

The period did produce gains for black workers. But they hadn’t been excluded from opportunities by mass immigration, they’d been excluded by racism. Northern labor needs from WW1 gave millions the opportunity to escape poverty, but even formal guarantees of civil rights still took another half-century.

The population chart was quite misleading: never trust anything that uses 200 million as its base. There’s nothing particularly significant about that part of the population derived from the residents of 1970s, and certainly the number of 247 million doesn’t represent any kind of carrying capacity: it’s just the point at which that population component completed its growth phase.

A doubling of population growth of course doesn’t double outlays on construction and infrastructure: even without population growth there’s rebuilding, maintenance, smaller households seeking more housing units, and expansion of roads etc to cope with the demands of increased per capita production & trade.

The argument about a million immigrants to the US being a small part of the world’s 80 million annual population growth is a strawman: I’ve never heard anyone suggest that any sustainable US inflow will cure world poverty. Reducing poverty and environmental damage elsewhere though would certainly ease the pressure for migration to richer countries.

It’s easy to pluck shocking-looking charts and odd numbers out of the air and claim that they miraculously constitute a coherent case for something or other. But the reality’s a good deal more complicated. Migration has all sorts of effects, which are influenced by other domestic and external policies & trends too. Most of the costs perceived in the US are the result of domestic social, fiscal and employment policies or global trends rather than of incoming numbers.

[Jim Warren]

9. A wake up call

I think Beck exaggerates a bit when he says we build twice the roads and other infrastructure, although he is right about schools in California. Otherwise I think he makes his case.

There isn't a country in the world right now that could handle this kind of exponential population increase, neither an economy were it flourishing not less limping along.

It's in the numbers.

[dave_p]

10. No, no, no, no

He doesn't make any honest case. It's distortion aimed at hoodwinking those with a poor grasp of the issue. The guy wouldn't last five minutes against a serious demographer or economist.

Schools in the state that's taken the larger share of arrivals aren't any sort of case for the country as a whole, or even for CA. In 2005 California contained 27% of the USA's foreign-born. But in 2000-05 it accounted for only 16% of the increase in the foreign-born. Its share's falling as more head beyond traditional areas.

Future population increase is not exponential, because fertility is falling worldwide. Even Beck's scaremongering charts correctly showed the future growth trend as linear. And the world as a whole will have to handle the same kind of increase over this century, with far fewer resources than those available to its richest country.

It's not in the numbers, it's in the policies countries adopt to provide workers' rights, investment in education and sustainable resource use. Every study of the consequences of immigration shows positive net effects overall. If societies lack the will or competence to distribute those effects for the benefit of all, that's not the fault of immigration.

[Jim Warren]

11. One no would be sufficient

otherwise I'd be inclined to think you are full of yourself.

"it's in the policies countries adopt to provide workers' rights, investment in education and sustainable resource use"

Seen much of that going on? Think we will?

In the meantime, it's in the numbers.

[dave_p]

12. No

I was responding to four points, all wrong. Otherwise there'd have been at least one yes in there.

Me full of myself? I think people are full of something when they throw around words like exponential without even bothering to check the numbers.

No (in agreement with you this time), I haven't seen much good policy going on. But that's the thing to fight for, not more of the cowering "fortress America" loved by the GOP.

It isn't in the numbers, it's in a nation's willingness to embrace the future without taking refuge in siege mentality.

[Jim Warren]

13. Good luck with that

ex·po·nen·tial
expressible or approximately expressible by an exponential function; especially : characterized by or being an extremely rapid increase (as in size or extent) <an exponential growth rate>

[dave_p]

15. Ah, you just meant "growth"?

Exponential growth implies geometric increase, i.e. by a constant proportion of the thing that's doing the growing. In this case I assumed it was the total population at issue, not immigrants as a target group. You did say "exponential population increase", not "exponential increase in above-replacement post-1970 immigrant stock". As you can see, the "total US population" line's pretty straight rather than curving upward.

[LBJDemocrat]

14. Increase in labor supply + Decrease in labor demand (due to outsourcing) = Decrease in wages

Simple economics. It has nothing to do with the race of the immigrants, nor what language they speak.

[dave_p]

16. Economics is never simple

And government's about ameliorating the action of crude laws, not sitting idly by. You also left out the increase in domestic consumers (people).

What happens to wages depends on the policies you're pursuing domestically to stop a handful of super-rich from monopolizing the gains from trade, productivity and specialization.

You can stop all immigration and deport millions of workers whose children may know only the US as their home, and still end up with poverty wages if you go on letting bosses get away with it.

Or you can penalize outsourcing, strengthen workers' rights and educate & train Americans for innovation and a high-tech competitive edge rather than McWorld.

If bosses can't fire to underpay, there no 450,000 coming in illegally. And if America's future workers get the education they deserve, they won't be competing for jobs at the slaughterhouse.

[Selatius]

28. You need a New Deal style reinvestment program.

Unfortunately, nobody since LBJ has proposed such expansive programs to fight poverty and punish unscrupulous employers, especially in a world where many have simply left the country for cheaper labor in China and other parts of the world. The rich simply won't tolerate anybody taxing their wealth and using it to empower those they want to keep dis-empowered, mainly the workers.

[dave_p]

30. We need the political will

Shutting America to the world rather than reversing the grotesque ongoing concentration of wealth and power just can't be an option, because Americans will still be screwed (but weaker internationally), and the super-rich won't care because they've the guarded mansions and they can live anywhere if things get too bad. What needs doing has to be done, immigration or no immigration.

[Selatius]

32. There must be an international answer to an international problem.

Corporations are simply becoming "too big" in some cases to regulate at the national level. If you passed strong labor/environmental protections and taxed their operations to fund social programs, they move the factory to a different continent where they exploit workers there and dump mercury in their rivers. If the power of capital is readily allowed to move that freely, then the power of labor should also be allowed to move that freely. That's only fair. If that's not possible, then real international labor unions must be forged, unions that span not just states but continents.

[lumberjack_jeff]

47. The world population is 6.6billion. The US population is 302million

To believe that international regulation will act to preserve the standard of living in america presumes that there's some motivation on their part to solve a US problem.

Imagine 20 people in a room. How likely is it that the poorest 19 who make on average about $7000 will act to stop the erosion of the quality of life of the richest one who makes $43,000?

Our per capita income could drop by half and still there would be an endless supply of people who would be better off here. What's inescapable is that we'd be worse off.

[Selatius]

53. I don't operate under the belief that the current US standard of living is sustainable. It isn't.

What I do contend with is the idea that workers are there for exploitation regardless of where they live. They're not. They're human beings that deserve respect. They are not numbers on a spread sheet or cogs in a machine, and they shouldn't be treated like one either.

[lumberjack_jeff]

55. I agree with this. The question is how will the smaller pie be divided.

When our GDP drops to sustainable levels, working folks will be better off without a legacy of unregulated immigration.

[lumberjack_jeff]

45. Linear immigration growth

His charts are linear, where the rate of immigration is not, it's increasing.

It's apparent that immigration will only be slowed because this is no longer a place that people will want to go.

[dave_p]

66. Not quite that either

It's the total population growth that's linear: declining 1970-stock growth + post-1970 inflow + natural increase among post-1970 arrivals. The "immigrant" component includes natural growth among the post-1970 newcomers, so it's that total post-1970 immigrant stock that's growing (almost) exponentially, rather than the cross-border flow. And like the foreign-born of 1907 its rates will slow over time.

It's not about the US becoming a less attractive place though, it's about other countries (including Mexico) becoming relatively more attractive (which Nafta hasn't delivered much of) and producing fewer people (which is starting to happen). We do need a creative global response to global issues of migration and development. We can manage it, if we have the will and are ready to share the costs as well as the benefits of getting it right.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. Read what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about Numbers USA.

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=93

This is just part of the SPLC report on the coalition of rightwing anti-immigration groups of which NumbersUSA is one.


"NumbersUSA executive director Roy Beck, a long-time friend of Coe's, adopted a more moderate tone when he addressed his guests and told them what they should be doing to end the current immigration regime.

It would be better, Beck counseled, if their attempts to lobby legislators that week did not appear to be orchestrated by NumbersUSA. For their campaign to be effective, he said, it "needs to look like a grassroots effort."

Grassroots — or AstroTurf?
To be sure, this was no grassroots effort. Nor is NumbersUSA, in any sense of the word, a grassroots organization.

Despite attempts to appear otherwise, it is a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Inc., a sprawling, nonprofit funding conduit that has spawned three anti-immigration groups and underwrites several others, many of which were represented at the NumbersUSA conclave."

[EVDebs]

20. Now that the obligatory charge of racism is out of the way, back to facts...

Robert Samuelson's The Hard Truth of Immigration: No society has a boundless capacity to accept newcomers, especially when many of them are poor or unskilled workers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100266/site/newsweek/

"...To make immigration succeed, we need (paradoxically) to control immigration."

I see the only way to pay for my upcoming Social Security and retirement being another influx of immigrants; however, what this is doing to the world's resources let alone the US's is crazy. Our lifestyle is too consumerist (read buy a lot of useless stuff made in China etc) in order to promulgate that same lifestyle in China and India. Can't be sustained even to 2031....

Read Plan B 2.0 portion of Ch 1 called Learning from China

http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB2/Contents.htm

The current influx of immigrants are going to be paying for my retirement but THEY will be forced to work in perpetuity without retirement benefits if things keep going the way they are. I can't even see how medical care / medicare will be paid for.

Some future to look forward to, huh ?

[UTUSN]

39. "obligatory charge of racism" is certainly dismissive of Post #17's hard citations, isn't it.

My local radio talkshow wingnut whined, when immigration blew up into a big issue, "Why is it that as soon as securing the borders or whatever is brought up, somebody yells 'RACISM'?"

The problem is that groups like the Minutemen MIX a veneer of legitimate concerns (national security, wages, workers' rights) with their real concerns, which ARE racist.

Post #17 cited the Southern Poverty Law Center, which laid out specific, TRUE allegations about the o.p.'s source.

Not everything is an "obligatory charge of racism." Some of it is TRUE.


Now, when discussions can separate out and be aware of the MIX of things, then "national security" or "wages" or whatever can be discussed HONESTLY. Not with a wink.

[EVDebs]

42. Just had to get it out of the way. I note no mention of the Robt. Samuelson article...too bad

That would have meant that ad hominem attacks (like Lou Dobbs show gets regularly) are condoned here on DU. Your facts and my facts have to be the same, if not THEN someone isn't telling the truth. Let's hope for the country's sake we're all getting the FACTS straight and not someone's spin version.

BTW, the only reason a border Minuteman group sprung up in the first place was because the Border Patrol wasn't doing the job, something the Southern Poverty Law Center probably doesn't care much about. Inconvenient fact.

[UTUSN]

46. It is not obligatory to respond to what parts of your post you want (SAMUELSON). I responded

to the part of your post that I needed/wanted to. But moving on to your new allegation, "ad hominem attacks (like Lou Dobbs ... gets regularly)", when the link (below) points out DOBBS praising the MM without noting their racisim, THAT is not ad hominem. I don't know what OTHER attacks on DOBBS you are referring to.

As for the MM having sprung up to do the job the Border Patrol wasn't doing, that is PURE CRAP. I *do* believe that the MM and the many other such groups --- PLUS the outright skinheads who aren't allowed to join PUBLICALLY --- ALSO have SINCERE interests in "national security" and such, but the bottom line is their racism.

Talk about "ad hominem," try your saying that the SPLC doesn't care about the BP's job.

Yep, I surely agree that discussion won't get far when there's spin going on and not straight FACTS. S'long.

[UTUSN]

48. Forgot to post the link I was talking about (SPLC/DOBBS), plus

So, 1) here's the link:

*******QUOTE*******
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=589

Broken Record
Lou Dobbs' daily 'Broken Borders' CNN segment has focused on immigration for years.

But there's one issue Dobbs just won't take on.

By Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok

.... For more than two years now, Dobbs has served up a populist approach to immigration on nightly segments of his newscast entitled "Broken Borders." He has relentlessly covered the issue, although hardly from a traditional news perspective -- Dobbs favors clamping down on illegal immigration, and his "reporting" never fails to make that clear. He has covered the same issues, and the same anti-immigration leaders, time after time after time. In recent months, Dobbs has run countless upbeat reports on the "citizen border patrols" that have sprung up around the country since last April's Minuteman Project, a paramilitary effort to seal the Arizona border.

But there's one thing Lou Dobbs won't do. No matter what others report about the movement, Dobbs has failed to present mounting and persistent evidence of anti-Hispanic racism in anti-immigration groups and citizen border patrols. ....

*********UNQUOTE********


And, 2) since you claim to want honest discussion of straight facts, one of the prime requirements for a truly honest discussion is for sandbagging and hidden agendas NOT be barriers. I, for example, come from a straightforward, FDR/LBJ social justice/social programs place. I am not an "open borders" idealist. How about laying out YOUR slant on things? Is it unions, wages, nativism, assimilation...what?

[EVDebs]

49. So the borders aren't broken at all. If you want unlimited immigration just say so.

What is the Border Patrol for ? Laughs, I guess.

[UTUSN]

51. O.K., since you posted these flamebaits, I'm going to answer so as not to let them stand alone

This, and your immediately next one.

The link clearly said that it was addressing itself to DOBBS's totally ignoring the racism of the Minutemen. It did NOT say the "borders are not broken." I myself said above that I am NOT an "open borders" type, so for you to fabricate that I am (hiddenly) wanting "unlimited immigration is a sign of your bad faith in the discussion you oh-so-claim to want.

Some signs of flamebaiting are: Changing the terms of discussion constantly, not responding directly to issues, ascribing positions to your opponent that were never said, plus the aforesaid bad faith.

It's clear from ALL of your posts in this thread that you have SOME axe to grind. Why don't YOU spell it out?

I'll be on to your next post below, then "goodbye"!!1

[EVDebs]

50. Cesar Chavez on illegal immigration to Congress in 1979...

"You forgot to mention that Cesar Chavez fought agaisnt illegal immigration. He regularly protested outside of INS offices, demanding that they enforce immigration laws. In 1979, Chavez bitterly testified to Congress:

… when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration service has removed strikebreakers. … The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking…

From what I read, you suffer from selective amnesia."

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/03/cesar_chavez_ha.html

from a Comment to Christine Chavez's column.

As with Robert Samuelson's column on immigration in general, not simply illegal immigration, the numbers are too large. Time for a respite, as I think Congress will do this time around.

[UTUSN]

54. Your post #50 says it is responding to my #39. I don't think so, but since you

bring up Cesar CHAVEZ, I'm well aware that undocumented immigration was one of his bugaboos, which is not surprising for Labor Organizers.

That said, I am not a personality cultist, even for the people whose issues I share (FDR/LBJ). I get flamed by the most fanatical of certain personality cultists HERE at DU, so I am not likely to be swayed by something's being endorsed by Cesar CHAVEZ. You *do* know that he practiced some mind-bending on his followers, yes? And that in the end he went years without recruiting new union outlets and that he purged all of the original idealists who started with him, and that his outfit was documented to have turned into a golden egg laying machine for his immediate family, yes?


But it's clear there is no real discussion going on here with you. There have to be more of those "straight FACTS" put out there, which you claim to want, specifically about what your axe to grind is.


P.S. Anybody who has a good word for the Minutemen just needs a LOT MORE "facts".

[EVDebs]

58. Hard truth for those willing to read it (so I'll re-post it)

The Hard Truth of Immigration: No society has a boundless capacity to accept newcomers, especially when many of them are poor or unskilled workers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100266/site/newsweek /

"...To make immigration succeed, we need (paradoxically) to control immigration."

Now you'll say Samuelson's under investigation by SPLC too I suppose and ANYONE who doesn't agree with your unlimited immigration stance has an 'ax to grind'. Maybe we just think giving a slower rate of immigration as a new policy a try is worthwhile and just leave it at that.

I think that's the policy, inevitably, that Congress will come to adopt.

[dave_p]

67. He's talking about annual flow

I don't understand why you think anyone should consider an article by Robert Samuelson some crucial piece of evidence, though in fact I don't see anyone fundamentally disagreeing with his conclusions.

And I don't know where you get the idea that Samuelson might be "under investigation". He does however rely heavily on Borjas, whose own findings have been contradicted by Ottaviano & Peri (1; 2), among others.

Note that Samuelson himself proposes legalizing the status of the "illegals" already in the US, and urges regulating the inflow according to what society can absorb annually, though he's unclear about that number. He's not talking about crude population limitation.

But I agree more or less, what he's outlining is likely to be adopted if the issue's discussed sensibly. And America could do far worse, provided legalization isn't hedged with vindictive penalties, and provided future arrivals aren't devided between "legals" and semi-legal "guest workers".

[EVDebs]

71. I'm glad you agree

hopefully more, not less.

Chew on this :

College or H-1B visas
Educate tomorrow's workers or import them, report says

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, May 24, 2007

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/24/BUGA9Q0DHL1.DTL

Assuming you are a US citizen with college age kids, tell me if you support higher or lower immigration. And once out of college, what 'starter' low-skilled job awaits the graduate ? Probably none at all, especially in the computer sciences, but that will have to be changed in the Dept of Labor under a new Democratic administration, hopefully.

[dave_p]

76. Educate and import

A well-educated workforce with a sound economy, union rights and decent enforced wages doesn't have to compete for underpaid, unskilled jobs. If I had kids I'd still be for more legal and no illegal immigration, because they're going to need a growing or stable workforce supporting them in old age too.

[Jim Warren]

77. Curious

Are you a US citizen? I'll be traveling to the UK soon and while looking through the DU forum I noticed
this: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x21111

[dave_p]

79. Lived there till '05

... just missing the bombings.

[dave_p]

70. Chavez was talking about illegal status

Nobody here's arguing for people to suffer the insecurity and misuse that unauthorizal status brings, are they? The issue here's between legalizing them and throwing them out: I haven't heard anyone call for keeping them and keeping them illegal (though I'm sure a few bosses want that).

Chavez knew the strength of immigrant workers with rights and union power. I want some of that too.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. If the "illegals" are made citizens then they would both pay and receive.

And, like all the other immigrants that preceded them they will demand higher wages and benefits.

[EVDebs]

44. ...Or, they could file suit against the employers who illegally hired them

in the first place; the fine for employers doing so at $10,000 per head (last I looked that was supposed to be the law). However, in court 'he who comes to court must come with clean hands' or translated two wrongs don't make a right. Maybe Southern Poverty Law Center could file a class action and see what happens that way and save us all a lotta grief.

The "made citizens" part right now means paying a hefty fine of around $1500 and a process of learning US laws (Constitution) and history.

[mdw]

43. THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/

[Lars39]

52. The Heritage Foundation is a right-wing think tank.

[Bridget Burke]

64. Know your sources....

Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a New Right think tank. Its stated mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of "free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense." It is widely considered one of the world's most influential public policy research institutes.

The Foundation wields considerable influence in Washington, and enjoyed particular prominence during the Reagan administration. Its initial funding was provided by Joseph Coors, of the Coors beer empire, and Richard Mellon Scaife, heir of the Mellon industrial and banking fortune.

www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heritage_Foundation

Gosh! Some of the same contributors are behind the anti-immigration propaganda mills. What a surprise!

[EVDebs]

72. Why would the moneypower folks in business NOW want to limit immigration

...while for decades they promoted it ? Know what questions to ask too.

[Jim Warren]

73. The Heritage Foundation..........what?

Forgive me, but what about the Heritage Foundation does your first and only post refer to?

[proud2BlibKansan]

78. I think it's crap

Anything to justify keeping those Mexicans out, eh?

[Jim Warren]

80. What?

Not all the undocumented people here illegally are Mexican.

[proud2BlibKansan]

81. I know that

but not everyone knows that.