An Idea for Immigration

ZappasGuitar said:
But you don't want to help the homeless in this country.
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There you go with the lying again. The only one's creating homelessness and doing nothing are Democrats in Democratically controlled urban shit holes.

ZappasGuitar said:
YOUR heartless party wants to cut funding that helps the homeless.
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Link us up dumbfuck. I want to see how Republicans are preventing Democrats in Democratically controlled urban shit holes from funding homeless assistance.
 
Hello Oneuli,

Oneuli said:
To get it out of the way, some will be tempted to reply "tl;dr" and move on. Consider it done and save yourself the time. But for those willing to put in some time and thought, here's an idea for addressing our real immigration issues.

First, let's clear away the manufactured panic over illegal immigration. You may not know it from watching Fox News, but there's no actual border crisis. Illegal immigration in this country has fallen greatly from its peak back in the Clinton years. And, anecdotes of individual criminal acts by illegal immigrants notwithstanding, illegal immigrants tend to be less violent, on average, than native-born Americans, so those immigrants are actually making the US safer.

It goes beyond that. We desperately need a large increase in immigrants in this country, due to the imminent explosion of a demographic time bomb. The short-form briefing is this: with Baby Boomers heading into retirement, we're poised for a couple lost economic decades, similar to, but worse than, what Japan suffered through, because we simply have too few younger workers. Immigrants tend to come from the exact age groups that we need to bolster to balance our demographic mix, so boosting immigration will make us far better off in the decades to come. The real immigration crisis is a crisis of immigration falling exactly when we need it to surge.

If that short form isn't clear or convincing, watch this video, which isn't actually about immigration, but gets into a fair amount of economic detail about the nature of the demographic timebomb we're facing. It's harrowing:


Nonetheless, I think we can all agree that solving this problem with legal immigration would be better than solving it with illegal immigration, and that bringing in motivated workers who will assimilate beats the alternative. So, here's the idea:

Fund a giant university just south of the border -- with a long-term lease for the land from the Mexican government. Make it big enough to house 1,000,000 people, at least (less than twice the size of the state university system of New York, and half the size of the California Community Colleges system, to put it in perspective.) The idea would be to provide no-cost education to people who want to come to the US.

Enrollees would be given adequate, no-frills food and housing for themselves and their dependent children. In exchange, they'd need to stick with a particular program. First, children and adults would all take intensive English-language education. The children would also get grade-level-appropriate general instruction, while the adults would take vocational instruction appropriate for their backgrounds and skills and the needs of the US job market, plus some civics and social training to prepare them for life in the US. In addition, the adults would be required to work 20 hours per week on tasks that decrease the operating cost of the university (doing low-level maintenance and admin work, and helping to grow and prepare the food).

The adults would graduate with a certificate once they'd achieved (a) working-level fluency in English, (b) demonstrated skill at something that will make them employable at a living wage in the US, and (c) basic knowledge of US civics/culture/history, equivalent to an easier version of the citizenship test. The certificate would come with a permanent work visa (so long as they avoided any serious legal trouble), and residency visas for their dependent children. Thus, graduation would signify to US employers that they're legally able to work, and have certain basic skills.

For some, graduation could be achieved almost immediately, if they've already got English skills, a decent education, and some practical skills. They'd only stay long enough to pass background checks and take their tests, and then they'd be on to the US. For others, it might take several years, like a real university. But, on average, I'm picturing about two years, such that the system would churn out 500,000 new legal residents per year (about 300k illegal border crossers are apprehended per year, to put it in perspective).

This would have a lot of advantages. First, it would give us somewhere to safely house refugees and their families pending hearings, in an academic, rather than penal system. Two, it would greatly decrease illegal immigration, by filling up the jobs that are drawing illegal workers with documented ones. Third, it would create an immigrant community that is more productive, employable, and prepped to integrate. Fourth, it would serve as a vetting period, to weed out problem immigrants. Fifth, it would fast-track the most motivated immigrants.

How much would it cost? Tough to say, but here's a back-of-the-envelope calculation. In Mexico, the monthly costs for basic needs for a couple with 2 children is about $320 (converted from pesos):

http://bajainsider.com/article/mexicos-cost-living-vs-income-how-do-they-do-it

In theory you could go much cheaper with the communal living and the people contributing to their own support, but just to be safe we'll go the other way and round that up to $1,000 per person, per year. Public universities cost between $378 and $818 per year in Mexico, but let's round up the high end of that, too, to be safe, to $1,000 per year for the education I'm talking about. So, $2,000 per person, per year, total. Multiply by 1 million people, and you get $2 billion in annual cost.

The Trump wall, by comparison, has been estimated to cost as much as $70 billion, followed by $150 million per year to maintain.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/us/politics/senate-democrats-border-wall-cost-trump.html

So, a thirty-year cost for each would be as much as $74.5 billion for Trump's wall, or $60 billion for my idea. Trump's wall would likely prove entirely useless, but even if it succeeded, what it would succeed in doing is making the detonation of our demographic time bomb vastly more painful than it needs to be. My idea, by comparison, would help to defuse that time bomb, while benefiting America with many millions of graduates who will become well-integrated and productive members of society.
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Awesome idea.

I emphatically support it.

GREAT IDEA!!!
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello Oneuli,



Awesome idea.

I emphatically support it.

GREAT IDEA!!!
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Thank you. Now the trick is figuring out how to get a Republican to push it. Obviously, even if it's something that Republicans could get enthused about, they'll reflexively oppose it in absolute lock-step if it's raised by a Democrat (see, for example, the time Obama basically adopted Romneycare).
 
Oneuli said:
Perhaps the family whose child he saved once thought the same. I hope the same happens to you.
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I take care of my own. Why do you need some fucking illegal Mexican looking out for you and yours? Aren't you capable of doing it yourself?
 
CFM said:
I take care of my own.
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Perhaps the family whose child he saved took care of their own just fine before that, too.... but thank goodness he was there when they needed them. I hope the same happens to you.

This really underscores the difference between liberals and conservatives, by the way. I'm hoping something good happens to your family that opens your heart, while you're hoping someone in my family is murdered, to punish me for disagreeing with you.
 
cawacko said:
We spend LOTS of money in California on the homeless and the problem is only worsening. What is it we are missing if more money isn’t the answer?
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You are missing more homeless... clearly. I think we shall start a fund to get the homeless in CO out of the harsh winters and send them to San Diego via bus.
 
Oneuli said:
Thank you. Now the trick is figuring out how to get a Republican to push it. Obviously, even if it's something that Republicans could get enthused about, they'll reflexively oppose it in absolute lock-step if it's raised by a Democrat (see, for example, the time Obama basically adopted Romneycare).
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Not sure about that part. From the economic standpoint that you presented, it makes sense. The problem is that if one party proposes something, the other automatically opposes it. The polarization in the country has not been worse in my lifetime than it is today.

You brought up Romneycare as an example. The 'wall' is another. Democrats supported it in 2006 (or at least a 500+ mile one). Yet now it isn't necessary.

They are all hypocrites.
 
Oneuli said:
Perhaps the family whose child he saved took care of their own just fine before that, too.... but thank goodness he was there when they needed them. I hope the same happens to you.

This really underscores the difference between liberals and conservatives, by the way. I'm hoping something good happens to your family that opens your heart, while you're hoping someone in my family is murdered, to punish me for disagreeing with you.
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For the something good you want to happen to me, something bad would have to happen.

A random illegal doing something good isn't justification for allowing any of them to stay.

It's not about punishment. It's about those of you that support illegals being here "benefiting" when they do bad things.
 
Superfreak said:
Not sure about that part. From the economic standpoint that you presented, it makes sense. The problem is that if one party proposes something, the other automatically opposes it.
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I wouldn't frame it quite that symmetrically. Sure, human nature being what it is, the left is more likely to respond positively to something from a Democrat than the same thing from a Republican. But there isn't the same kind of overwhelming, knee-jerk, lock-step opposition to anything a Republican does.

For example, even when Republicans propose clearly imbecilic things that run directly against Democratic principles (the Iraq War resolution, Bush's fiscally catastrophic tax cuts), you can always count on at least a few Democrats breaking ranks to support it. By comparison, when a Democratic president embraces what was essentially the Republican solution to healthcare form (Obamacare/Romneycare), every single Republican votes against it, because even though it's in line with their own party's principles, it became poison the minute a Democrat proposed it.

It's just not realistic to picture that working the opposite way. For example, can you picture if a Republican president selected a healthcare reform that was mostly in line with what has been authored by a liberal think tank, and a program advocated by a prominent liberal Democratic governor? The Democrats would be falling all over themselves to be bipartisan in that case.

Democrats supported it in 2006 (or at least a 500+ mile one)
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That's a huge difference. If I support building a picket fence around a particular playground, for example, that doesn't mean I also support building a concrete barrier around the whole town.

The issue here is that Democrats bent over backwards to placate the right, by getting on board with a fairly low-cost fence for portions of the border, and rather than take that as a gesture of goodwill demanding one of their own, the Republicans, as always, saw it as a sign of weakness, and are now demanding that if the Democrats gave in on that, they must give in on a monumentally expensive full-border wall. It just goes to show, there's no reason to cooperate with the Republicans. It's like those who think flattering bullies will make them reform. Bullies see any accommodation as blood in the water, and an invitation to more misbehavior. They only understand force. I, for one, am glad that the Democrats, at long last, seem like they're willing to fight back. If the Republicans show signs of moderating, by all means it should be reciprocated, but I'm sick of unilateral disarmament.
 
Hello Oneuli,

Oneuli said:
Thank you. Now the trick is figuring out how to get a Republican to push it. Obviously, even if it's something that Republicans could get enthused about, they'll reflexively oppose it in absolute lock-step if it's raised by a Democrat (see, for example, the time Obama basically adopted Romneycare).
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That's for sure.

But a bit naive.

The personal mandate was a Republican idea.

They will be all for it if

a) It makes somebody who is very powerful very rich.

and

b) It can be 'justified' with hatred of a boogie-man.
 
Cornelius said:
so essentially we let third world shitholers extort us or else they'll just come into our country anyway with a dumber IQ and poor skills and shit in our streets, so we better give them money. nice plan.
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Why not? We let Appalachian Americans fuck up vast swaths of the industrial belt.

The fact is we need immigration. We need it to bolster our aging population and we need the influence of new thoughts and ideas. We need the people who are willing to do labor no one else will. We need people with exceptional talents and skills.

The nativist position that is echoed by Trump supporters has been around a long time. It goes way back to the mass migrations to the US in the early 19th century. It's another example of a culture war that's been lost before it has even started. The right wing nativist movement, which is based on the racial and social fears of the lower classes, is a failed one. It failed in the 1830's and 1850's and 1890's and it would fail now for the obvious reason that we need immigration to some extent.

The real question is how do we control immigration and make it a limited but legal and orderly process and that's not going to be addressed by nativist dumbassery.

This is why pretty much any thinking person who can rub two sticks together are laughing their ass off at Trump with his blatant Demagoguery and his appeal to the unwashed ignorant masses. It's a fight he's lost before he's even started and that's what makes it and his supporters so damned funny. :)
 
It's a beautiful idea because it solves two big issues simultaneously.

Illegal immigration and Social Security.

Let 'em in. Let 'em work. Let 'em pay in to the system.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
The fact is we need immigration. We need it to bolster our aging population and we need the influence of new thoughts and ideas. We need the people who are willing to do labor no one else will. We need people with exceptional talents and skills.
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Who is arguing that we don't need immigration scarecrow? The debate is about the massive hoards of ILLEGAL aliens flooding into the country who are encouraged by moronic liberal Demcoratic policies like Sanctuary Cities and States and giving them benefits reserved for citizens.
 
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