Handling illegal immigration

[innonimatu]

Every state in the world has some kind of legal process to handle immigration. And many have what is called "illegal immigration", immigration outside that process.

I have seen a lot of noise being made within the EU about the issue. Italy's government wants to host fewer such immigrants, but so do all the other governments. Some governments finance NGO that help immigrants cross into the EU, but dump them in other countries and press to keep in place rules restricting those immigrants to remain there. In a word, hypocrisy.

In the US I see the party in power doing something to restrict immigration, the opposition criticizing it - the very same people who set up many of the institution and procedures that are in use now.

Let's face it: illegal immigration is regarded by people as a social problem that must be dealt with somehow. Countries are not a "free for all," very few people subscribe to such a view. Mass immigration is very much a "NIMBY problem". Immigrants should be helped"... so long as that is not too expensive and does not land a problem at my doorstep! So long as they don't come to compete for my job! And so on...

So I'm asking one simple question, and without any pool attached: how would you handle illegal immigration (as in immigration outside regulated procedures) into your country? Do you have any coherent policy you would deploy?

 

[Archbob]

Yeah, I'd just make a strict number each year and do a lottery like we currently do, with only a certain percentage going to H1Bs and such. Illegals should be deported, but families should not be separated.

 

[Lexicus]

So I'm asking one simple question, and without any pool attached: how would you handle illegal immigration (as in immigration outside regulated procedures) into your country? Do you have any coherent policy you would deploy?

Open the border, document everyone who makes it into the United States.

Immigrants should be helped"... so long as that is not too expensive and does not land a problem at my doorstep! So long as they don't come to compete for my job! And so on...

I would like to state for the record that I have lived basically my whole life in parts of the United States that have lots and lots of immigrants. Incidentally, people who actually think immigrants "take jobs" from anyone are just useful idiots for the capitalist class.

Yeah, I'd just make a strict number each year and do a lottery like we currently do, with only a certain percentage going to H1Bs and such. Illegals should be deported, but families should not be separated.

Wow, so it's good to see that you and Trump are actually quite close together on this issue. You just support marginally less violation of human rights than he does.

 

[Ryika]

Wow, so it's good to see that you and Trump are actually quite close together on this issue.

Trump, him, and most of the rest of the world.

 

[sophie]

Freedom of movement is an essential human right, and people shouldn't be incarcerated simply for trying to find a better life for themselves or their families.

 

[Zelig]

A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer

 

[Synobun]

Mohammed the brain surgeon isn't going to take your job pumping gas away from you.

 

[sophie]

Mohammed the brain surgeon isn't going to take your job pumping gas away from you.

Why does it have to be one or the other? If you aren't qualified/skilled enough to outcompete Mohammed or Klaus or Marco or whomever for a desired position, whether it be brain surgeon, cashier, office temp, whatever, that sounds like much more of a you problem than a society problem.

Isn't it funny how the people who rail against millennial and liberals for expecting participation awards and having everything handed to them on a silver platter also seem to be the same people railing against immigrants for taking jobs which they feel "rightfully belong to them".

 

[Lexicus]

While the hypocrisy is obvious, as a socialist I really do think people have the right to a job, not necessarily whatever job they want but a job.

 

[Synobun]

While the hypocrisy is obvious, as a socialist I really do think people have the right to a job, not necessarily whatever job they want but a job.

Sure, but in a true socialist society community service would be a job unto itself. It wouldn't simply be wage slave nonsense. It's easier to give everyone work if 'work' is more open-ended.

 

[Lexicus]

Sure, but in a true socialist society community service would be a job unto itself. It wouldn't simply be wage slave nonsense. It's easier to give everyone work if 'work' is more open-ended.

Meh. I think there are plenty of things to do now, just not enough money to pay people to do them, and the solution to "not enough money" is "the government should spend more money."

 

[Ryika]

Why does it have to be one or the other? If you aren't qualified/skilled enough to outcompete Mohammed or Klaus or Marco or whomever for a desired position, whether it be brain surgeon, cashier, office temp, whatever, that sounds like much more of a you problem than a society problem.

Except of course, if Mohammed is willing to do the job much cheaper than you because his intend is to send most of that money back to where he came from, where its relative value is much higher than here where you're trying to feed a family of your own.

 

[sophie]

Except of course, if Mohammed is willing to do the job much cheaper than you because his intend is to send most of that money back to where he came from, where its relative value is much higher than here where you're trying to feed a family of your own.

I mean I'm not a capitalist, so I don't really know why you're telling me all this.

 

[Synobun]

Except of course, if Mohammed is willing to do the job much cheaper than you because his intend is to send most of that money back to where he came from, where its relative value is much higher than here where you're trying to feed a family of your own.

These two qualifiers don't match up with one another. If you're sending your money elsewhere, you need to earn more money 'here' to support yourself and then those in another country.

 

[Archbob]

Open border really just lets poorer countries with bad governments push their problems onto richer countries. People come here to make higher salaries and then send them back home. If there was say a 50% or more on remittences, it'd probably stop that but then you get all sorts of other problems. I'm for temprorary shelters for refuges though.
I wouldn't really have an issue with open borders with US/Canada since they are at about the same level of standard of living(at least the many times I've been north of the border, it didn't seem any different).

 

[NovaKart]

These two qualifiers don't match up with one another. If you're sending your money elsewhere, you need to earn more money 'here' to support yourself and then those in another country.

Unless you’re comparing two people, each supporting families but one family living in a less expensive country.

 

[EnglishEdward]

The ideal of unrestricted migration has a number of issues:

(a) cultures and religions that encourage early marriage and large families try to, in part, resolve
their expanding population's living space problem by exporting surplus people to other places where
the inhabitants have limited their procreation rate, this disincentives population restraint throughout the world.

(b) there is less incentive to preserve the fecundity of land in one's locality if thee is the option to move elsewhere

(c) people perceive of land as personal space, family space and shared space; the inhabitants of a state may
assume that the land is shared by its inhabitants. If outsiders arrive, then their land ownership share is diluted

(d) fundamental culture clashes over for example the way to behave in public.

These are often perceived as issues by the SOMEWHEREs but not so much by the ANYWHEREs.

In practice the significance of (a) to (c) vary according to geography. The problems are more manageable for
less densely populated countries and countries that have food surpluses than for high density food importers.

 

[Ryika]

I mean I'm not a capitalist, so I don't really know why you're telling me all this.

No, but your position is that immigration should not be controlled, and the way I read your post was a sarcastic version of something that a capitalist would say, which signals to me that you see that this is an issue. So how do you prevent/fix it?

These two qualifiers don't match up with one another. If you're sending your money elsewhere, you need to earn more money 'here' to support yourself and then those in another country.

Makes no sense at all. If you're alone in America, with a family in who-knows-where, then all you need to pay in "American value" is a small apartment that you can sleep in and food for yourself while all of the rest is paid where your money has higher relative value.

If you have a family in America, then you need a flat that's big enough for your family for which you'll need to pay an American rent, you need to buy everything that your child needs here in America, etc. etc. - the more of those costs you can move to a country where your money has higher relative value, the more money you essentially have available to you. The benefit is of course that your partner can work for an American wage as well, but given that they too have to use "American value" goods, that's the same as your partner working in another country, for a wage that is similar in relative value to the job that your partner does here.

As long as you don't create significant extra costs by not living together with your partner, working in America and sending your money to a country where it has higher relative worth, increases the overall wealth that your family has.

 

[Peuri]

Open borders is a beautiful idea that my humanist heart wants to be true some day, along with the world state. But if the borders would suddenly be open to everyone, wouldn't that create a huge housing shortage in the West, essentially propping up the propertied classes through rent seeking behaviour, while driving wages down for the lower and middle classes and putting stress on the welfare system?

 

[Lexicus]

If borders were open, the situation would be basically identical to what it is now, except that the West wouldn't be callously allowing immigrants to die while reaching it, or creating legal classes of "undocumented immigrants" who can be abused and exploited at will because they have no legal protections.