I vote for Democrats almost all the time, especially at the Federal level. But there are a few issues where I wish I could register my dissatisfaction in a way that doesn't mean voting for the GOP, with border security / illegal immigration being one of them.
At a basic level, I do not believe the Democratic Party, wants to reduce illegal immigration in any meaningful measure. It is only addressed when it becomes a big enough issue that it MUST be addressed, or when it negatively affects places like Chicago or NYC. Immigration reform / border enforcement wasn't part of any Build Back Better proposal, and it wasn't in the IRA that ultimately passed. I believe the goal is to allow illegal crossings, say we just can't afford to process & house them, release them into the US, then after a few years describe them as "long-resident unauthorized immigrants who’ve been living and working in the United States for years" so they garner maximum sympathy.
So, sorry Dara, although your positions are well-reasoned and extremely well-presented, I'm not too worried about the potential that some future President might enforce immigration laws. That didn't happen after the Reagan Amnesty, and it hasn't happened since then.
If the choice were between this and complete demographic stagnation, I’d swallow my concerns and go with this.
But I firmly believe, and I think history on similar topics bears this out, that our choice is between (EDIT: something much worse than the status quo) and a reformed system allowing much more emphasis on skill and potential contribution.
Family/chain migration is going to ensure a stream of a million-odd low-skilled immigrants annually, stretching a decade into the future.
What we need is another million plus doctors, engineers, professors, semiconductor manufacturing experts, construction managers, and accountants, at least 200,000 of whom are permitted in with the explicit goal of taking China’s best and brightest.
We don’t get that without getting control over the current clusterfuck. The GOP will always oppose it but the mushy middle can be brought to see the need and value, if and only if they feel secure on the topic.
Why does history on similar topics bear this out as a possibility? The current skilled immigration system was essentially created by mistake, if you had put to 1965 voters the idea of bringing over hundreds of thousands of (skilled or unskilled) immigrants from Asia they would have revolted. Luckily policymakers did the right thing for the wrong reasons. More recently, we had reform attempts fail in 2006 and 2014, both preceding the MAGA turn of R house members
AIUI the issue with Boehner was never that he was unwilling to deal, it was that he was incapable of getting his caucus sufficiently behind him to ensure that whatever deal he wished to strike actually passed. It was an internal party discipline issue rather than one of pure intransigence. The Obama administration's problem wasn't with Boehner personally except inasmuch as he couldn't whip his faction into line.
I meant on similar topics in which people needed to feel secure before fundamental reforms could take place. Criminal justice is probably the best example. A lot of what took place during our peak era of urban decay can only be described as abusive towards those accused of crime, and we had to get the problem more fundamentally under control before reforms of any sort could take place.
The 2014 failure was when net illegal immigration was negative, no? And that was pre Trump, so pre party realizing that anti-immigrant demagoguery is effective and popular (doubly so in primaries). I really don’t see the case for optimism here
The GOP had just finished fearmongering and gerrymandering their way to a House majority (fear on healthcare, not immigration) and the 2014 bargain still came within a hair’s breadth of succeeding and would have if the Democrats held the House.
That’s the whole point: the victory condition here is a moderately chastened Democratic House majority and 8-10 GOP senators who can be persuaded that skills-based immigration is a strategic necessity, which means that illegal immigration has to be low salience as it was in 2014.
So all we need is to get the 10th most liberal R senator (>10 after 2024) to adopt positions on Trump’s signature issue to the left of Boehner ‘14. Sounds great!
“ at least 200,000 of whom are permitted in with the explicit goal of taking China’s best and brightest”
That’s how you train up China, unless you have some magical method of actually identifying dissidents. It’s not so easy with the Chinese compared to the Soviets
I guarantee we can hit that figure easily; most every professional class person in the country is some combination of worried, unhappy, or mad with the direction of governance and rhetoric in Zhongnanhai.
I think that if you remember right, Trump once complained that we were admitting too many people from 'shithole countries' What he meant by that was that we are letting in a lot of poor folks who don't contribute economically for quite a while. Engineers who aren't poverty stricken contribute right away, both in taxes and in stimulating the economy. So it might surprise you to learn that you agree with Donald Trump and most Republicans on that issue.
What really happens is that Republicans see it logical that you have to stop the bleeding before you can repair the wound. Democrats use twisted logic and want to just pour more blood into the patient first. The author of this article sees that Democrats really don't have any will to stop the flow. Both things have to happen, they just disagree on what has to be done first. It's a no-brainer that legal immigration needs to be easier, and illegal immigration needs to be a lot harder. Clusterfuck seems like a really accurate description of the current situation, but not because Republicans are against higher skilled workers coming here.
There is a sense in which I agree with this and a sense in which I think you're smoking something potent.
Agreement first: There are a lot of issues on which I think the positions and attitudes of the median Republican and Democratic voter aren't nearly as far apart as tribalism, gerrymandering, (mother-fucking-never-sufficiently-to-be-damned) social media, and bloody-minded partisanship suggest. Among them is immigration; most Democrats find the status quo on asylum untenable, and most Republicans understand that robbing the world of its best and brightest is good for us. Fewer understand that it's good for the rest of the world, but who cares? If you left it a sortition-selected panel we'd have a working mid-volume legal immigration system, a reasonably humane but strict asylum regime, and continued but limited family/chain migration in six months. 65% of the electorate would find it perfectly fine and another 10 or 15% would think it acceptable.
Disagreement: Tribalism and gerrymandering mean that it's incredibly difficult for me to envision a world in which the Republican *primary electorate* and thus the GOP caucus can take the lead on pro-legal immigration reform. The Republican primary electorate in many districts opposes "importing" their subordinates or peers. Allowing a bunch of people who will be their "superiors," in the sense that they will inevitably have higher economic and social status than them, into the country is *not* in the cards. I don't particularly care what half-assed, ill-formed, unthinking phrase Trump uttered, to enough (not all, not most, but enough) of his voters a Nigerian doctor, Indian engineer, Chinese manufacturing lead, or Brazilian forensic accountant *is* a person from a shithole country. The GOP leadership is increasingly beholden to that base and cannot buck it, though their Senators can defect from it with some hope of survival if the salience of immigration is low-ish, as in 2014.
I'm not sure what I expect to happen, but a plausible story of the next decade or so is that the Democrats screw up on illegal immigration badly enough to empower the worst voices on the right, who will proceed to fuck the economy up six ways from Sunday with a combination of deficit-busting tax cuts and domestic expulsion programs, in turn allowing the Democrats to sweep back in with a remit to fix legal immigration.
Fair comments. I think that there is opportunity for bipartisan work on this, but you are right, it won't be spearheaded by MAGA types. It also isn't going to be spearheaded by any far left types because, you know, racism.
If we could just get a centrist third party off the ground...sigh.
letting in parents of US citizens seems dubious. why should we be an international retirement home? long term visas for wealthy people who want to retire here seem fine
I think you misread my original comment, I wasn't proposing doing away with it, I was saying that continued family preference alongside a larger stream of skilled immigrants would mean that we still get a million-odd less skilled immigrants each year.
I personally think extended family can be dispensed with entirely and the cut-off placed firmly at parents and minor children who are to be supported by the sponsor. Spouses go without saying, of course.
The solution to unauthorized immigration is to increase legal immigration and cross border work permits.
Also in most cases migrants commit civil infractions and are not a crime for residing in the U.S., thus illegal immigrant is not an appropriate or accurate. (Not to mention, no person is illegal by just existing. Legality refers to an act.)
But back to my main point, conservatives don’t want a Schengen like agreement with our neighbors, they don’t want to fund the bureaucracy to either process immigration papers OR deportations, and they don’t offer real solutions. They want the problem to fester to bash Democrats on it and do nothing to resolve the problem because they see it as useful for stoking racial animus.
The "solution" you describe is one I would support without reservation. But that is not the solution provided by either Party.
Respectfully, take your "no person is illegal" criticism elsewhere. Some people are criminals because they break the law. Some people are illegal immigrants because they immigrate illegally.
I have a very strong stance against labeling whole groups of people as illegal.
Maybe you should read the Origins of Totalitarianism passages where Hannah Arendt describes how Nazis used rhetoric labeling entire groups of people as inherently illegal and how such language was used to facilitate horrific crimes of violence.
I have already explained why the term is inappropriate since most violation of immigration law are civil infractions. But if you wish to be consistent you must call yourself an ILLEGAL CITIZEN, because I doubt you have never jaywalked, sped, littered, failed to yield, failed to submit an official form in a timely manner, etc.
If he were a citizen via illegal means then perhaps he could be called an illegal citizen.
If I drive without a license call me an illegal driver if you want.
Illegal here is the modified on his status word, not his personage.
A legal immigrant who speeds doesn't become an illegal immigrant because speeding has nothing to do with immigration status.
The idea that calling someone an "illegal immigrant" implied they themselves were illegal never crossed my mind(nor, I suspect, the minds of most others) until people making your argument started saying it must.
It does not make me think less of the immigrants, I'd happily grant them amnesty were it up to me, but it will not convince a Trump voter to support them, and may make them less likely to listen to your arguments.
Excellent point on your last sentence. The line really does nothing but piss off ideological opponents and skeptics (and ideological allies don't need convincing) because it's a bad-faith response to a strawman position not actually held by anyone (and the analogies to driving are apt.). "Classes of persons" defined by acts rather than heredity (and even the staunchest proponents of immigration enforcement would surely acknowledge that, descriptively, jus soli citizenship *exists,* so it clearly is an act-based rather than hereditary status) are not intrinsically suspect -- this is why we have classes like "criminals" or "litterbugs" or "antivaxxers." And while Dan's emphasis on the civil-criminal distinction might suggest that "unauthorized immigrant" is more formally correct than "illegal immigrant," for all practical discussion purposes this seems like a distinction without a difference at the expense of an extra syllable -- there's no ambiguity in either case about the referent of the expression or the conditions under which it applies.
Accordingly, Dan's ideological opponents will--correctly--infer that the slogan is pure euphemism treadmilling in support of nonenforcement.
"And while Dan's emphasis on the civil-criminal distinction might suggest that "unauthorized immigrant" is more formally correct than "illegal immigrant," for all practical discussion purposes this seems like a distinction without a difference at the expense of an extra syllable -- there's no ambiguity in either case about the referent of the expression or the conditions under which it applies."
Dan's argument is the reason why I get so outraged whenever anyone says I was *illegally* parked whenever I get a ticket. It's a civil infraction with an administrative enforcement mechanism you monsters!!!
So you never seen Republicans calling unauthorized “Illegals” or justify shooting them, or justify child separation, or justify open air detention in the desert?
Because that is what the labeling of people as “illegal” facilitates. It facilitates human suffering.
The word "illegals" by itself I disagree with. But that's also partly that they've removed the word that actually should refer to a person.
Calling them "undocumenteds" would also be dehumanizing.
But the combo phrase "illegal immigrants" is fine to me.
You'll never find a way to get people who want to dehumanize to not be able to do it. But running the euphemism treadmill for normies feels more likely to put them off than on, and at best pointless.
Well I prefer not to emulate the rhetorical tactics of Nazis during a period of heightened antisemitism.
And don’t act like the dehumanizing label didn’t contribute to horrific acts like the child separation policy, which in itself eerily resembles some of those horrific acts committed by totalitarians.
Is jaywalking a condition for citizenship? Because otherwise you're just throwing together two unrelated terms to prove a point, which strikes me as such a weak analogy that it actually undercuts the point you're trying to make.
You concede that they're violating immigration law, so now you're just quibbling about whether the act prohibited by law that they committed is criminal or civil to raise an objection to the term illegal. "Individual Whose Immigration Was Contrary to Immigration Law" seems like it can be easily simplified to illegal immigrant. These silly semantic arguments are tiresome and only serve to make people less inclined to listen to any reasonable arguments you want to make on the subject. Changing the accepted vernacular to undocumented immigrant does precisely nothing to change anyone's view on the subject, but now you've wasted all this time arguing over some meaningless triviality.
Illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants. Slaves are slaves. Zionists are Zionists. Reasonable discussion demands calling things by their proper names. Confuscius was right.
And you just disregarded reasoning why such a label is unreasonable and substituted sophistry for reasonableness.
David Abbot is an illegal because he has committed a civil infraction somewhere. A crime against society so great that it’s the only identity he can be ascribed.
You see how this is unreasonable? Do you even care?
Uncivil immigrant or infracting immigrant doesn't sound much better, lol. But more seriously...
A word or label will sometimes shape how we feel, but as often or more the meaning of the word of label shifts to reflect what it's describing.
If we all called ourselves illegal citizens, rather than walking around in shame and guilt because of prior jaywalking, the phrase would come to be felt as a joke.
Ironically, insisting that people change their language is a bit on the 1984 side. Especially when the original language is clear. An illegal immigrant is not someone who murdered or stole or raped somebody, it's just a person who immigrated illegally. Whatever new phrase we could come up with, it won't just that some people are here after following a legal immigration process and some aren't, and so language will require terms to distinguish them.
I use unauthorized because many do have documents that just lapsed.
Lots of people seemed to have taken issue with my disfavor with using the “illegal” framing and disregarded my comments on admirations reforms and funding.
If they entered the country illegally they have literally illegally immigrated. That’s just the most precise and least obfuscating way about it. Ditto if they overstay their non-immigrant visa , with a view to settle permanently in the us against us law. That’s illegal immigration. The person doing so an illegal immigrant. This is in contrast to a legal immigrant. “No person is illegal” is a stupid slogan. No person is legal either, but English has participles and the action of immigration can be done in a legal or illegal manner.
I remember having this exact same debate with my more conservative English teacher in high school. Thinking a bit differently about it now. I guess that's the old adage about being less liberal as you get older...
No, "undocumented" is at least as equally precise—they've migrated without proper documents (visa, etc)—and has the added appeal of not dehumanizing 12 million souls. But the latter part, of course, is the point (not for you personally, but clearly for many).
Orwellian nonesene. The illegal immigration is well documented. And the “proper documents”‘lacking aren’t the issue, the issue is what they represent ie authirizaiton to enter*
It’s like characterizing burglars as “keyless guests”.
Also, if you actually care aboit human rights you ought to learn what dehumanization actually looks like and not cheapen such terms.
(*or rather - authorization to be *considered* for entry by the immigration officer! Strictly speaking a Non immigrant visa isn’t legal entitlement for entry!).
Well no, actually, it's not. When a person obtains permission to immigrate to the US, their doing so is documented by the government.
When a person sneaks across the border, their doing so rather obviously isn't.
It's a perfectly anodyne use of the English language.
Let's be honest: you prefer "illegal immigrant" because you think (righty, I suspect) using that terms tends to code a person as having a position or general ideological disposition with respect to public policy on this issue. Which is fine. Continue to use it! It's not the biggest problem in the world in my view.
But to me "undocumented" is more neutral, clinical and, yes, less dehumanizing.
A large part of the people involved had their entry documented in various ways not to mention those overstaying their visa. By contrast 100% of those involved are here illegally. That’s the whole point the literal definition of the group and the basis of the debate. I’m for this term because I’m for precise honest discourse. “Undocumented”’is false , misleading , Orwellian neologism, which only became popularized when far left open borders insanity did.
P.S.
Some real refugees, legally entitled for asylum, may have crossed the border and be temporarily “undocumented” however these aren’t the people we are arguing about- as they have a legal right to be here! By obfuscating on the illegal immigration debate you’re ironically throwing refugees under the bus.
If a person enters the country legally and overstays their visa, there is documentation of their entry into the country and further documentation that they did not leave. A person who walks across the Rio Grande, requests asylum and never shows up for thd hearing is also documented. The issue is they have no legal right to immigrate and their attempted immigration is illegal.
Some illegal immigrants are documented, others are undocumented. If immigration records are somehow destroyed, some legal immigrants may become undocumented, but could still rightly describe themselves as legal. Likewise if certain amnesty bills were passed - some illegal immigrants would instantly become legal, without any chance whatsoever in their documentation status.
I don't think you can describe those situations with your language, so it's not as precise.
There are unauthorized migrants who have committed crimes who have entered, and there are those who have committed civil infractions (most).
Calling them “illegal” immigrants prior to any form of due process and lumping them together with a pejorative label that directly implies criminality is dehumanizing and has been used to justify horrible abuses.
Are you listening to yourself? Did they enter legally? No. Hence they entered illegally. You*know* this is the case. “Illegal immigrant”‘isn’t “criminal immigrant” , it’s “illegal” immigrant, which is very very precise. Obfuscation that flies so obviously against common sense is very very harmful. You’re not helping anyone,, you are alienating many people by insisting on dishonesty and transparent sophistry as the basis for the discourse. Such alienation plays right into the hands of the far right and ironically dramatically increases the chance of the realization of some of the fears you use to justify this distortion of language
Maybe I just don’t like propagating the language of those who just call unauthorized immigrants simply “illegals” and support horrific human abuses?
And maybe you should reread the analogy when you compared breaking civil immigration law to robbery (a felony) before dismissing the “illegal” label and criminality implications?
It isn’t Orwellian to point out the strategies of dehumanization that Hannah Arendt describes appear in this label.
In standard American idiom, "illegal immigrant" very often leads to "illegals" as a noun ("My landlord just evicted a family of illegals on the third floor").
The use of "illegal immigrant" isn't the worse linguistic crime in the world, for sure. But since "undocumented immigrant" is equally precise and doesn't lend itself so easily to anti-immigrant discourse, why not use it? It's better!
It’s not precise, it’s intentionally misleading and immediately flags anyone using it as an engaging in bad faith.
P.S.
To be clear, now that “undocumented” is common parlance on the left, I personally don’t think all using it are in bad faith. But certainly that’s why the term was conceived and is still perceived by many.
Also “illegal” is fine as shorthand. It suggests their presence is illegal which is exactly right ! At the bottom of the “undocumented” propaganda is open borders insanity. Also there are no “linguistic crimes “ (an ironic term to use for someone fearing discourse of illegality!). Only totalitarians think in terms of language crime. Did I mention Orwell already?
Ethics Gradient suggested unauthorized, which I do think is equally precise. But undocumented really isn't, because the cruz of the matter isn't documentation.
If my drivers license is revoked I can be an illegal or unauthorized driver - either is accurate and I don't care which you use. But if you say I'm an undocumented driver I would find the term very confusing. An undocumented driver sounds l like someone who never took a drivers test in the first place or something, I dunno.
What would your response be if it turned out that the people endorsing positions you find distasteful did so regardless of the terminology used because the terminology isn't actually doing any normative legwork?
Then you would have to argue that dehumanizing language does not facilitate human immiseration, but then why do the proponents of targeted human immiseration spend such effort on creating dehumanizing labels and throwing propaganda at their targets?
Hence why so many Republicans just use the term “Illegals” and omit any reference to immigration.
This group of people are inherently criminals, therefore child separation, open air detention in the desert, and warehousing people on cold concrete floors without blankets are all acceptable.
The label is designed and used to excuse inhumane abuse. You might argue that it doesn’t contribute to that, but so far the closest I have seen someone come to that is an argument of language drift (though it’s difficult to see how illegal-> criminal->punishment is justified dehumanization links are reinforced with alternative framings.)
"(though it’s difficult to see how illegal-> criminal->punishment is justified dehumanization links are reinforced with alternative framings.)"
Simple- the term "undocumented" is basically a synonym for illegal in the context it is used, but even if it wasn't it's only one stepped removed. "Who are we referring to when we say "undocumented"? We mean immigrants who are here contrary to law, or illegally", lends itself very easily to the linguistic flow of undocumented -> illegal-> criminal->punishment. Your excessive focus on terminology will just mean people end up using a different term to mean the same thing, and if they understand it to mean the same thing then the outcomes are identical.
Exactly- I said this back in November on another post, but it seems applicable here so I'll copy-and-paste:
The issue always come back to "what is the intent of the word". If the whole reason a word exists is to insult or a degrade a group of people then sure, change it (this is the category the n-word falls into). But if the word itself is simply a descriptor of some condition that people find sympathetic or are concerned that others will attack the person for then the word isn't the issue, it's the fact that people will attack them for it that's the issue. Changing the term won't change that. Homeless is no more stigmatizing than unhoused- they both describe clearly the condition that the person is in, and some people will, unfortunately, negatively judge the person who is experiencing that condition, regardless of the term that is used. Same with things like retarded or midget- the terms become associated with negative connotations not because the words are problematic but because some people will use them problematically. If you change the word that is used to describe the condition the same problematic people will just adapt and in 15 years time the newly anointed non-problematic word will then be problematic and in need of changing. Descriptive words being constantly altered is utterly useless, and altering them is, as you say, just a silly excuse to police boundaries and define in-vs-out groups. We should move away from words whose initial intent was to insult and degrade, but otherwise we should just accept that language is open to interpretation in ways that mean that some people will find ways to use any language in an insulting and demeaning way.
Right - as an example, there's nothing inherently immoral, disgraceful or inferior about getting caught in the rain and having the shirt on your back get wet . Yet somehow the term I'm alluding to is probably more pejorative than illegal immigrant.
It's all about how it's used, who's using it, etc. A much more famous word beginning with N has a very complex, context-based history of meaning as well. Words carry meanings but we give meanings to words as we use them.
The vast majority of the discourse on this particular thread has nothing to do with solving the problem and everything to do with making people feel comfortable in how they talk about the problem. And that's a problem.
I say "nondocumented person." But that's what *I* say, and arguing (if I may indulge in the rhetorical style of David M-with-too-many-syllables) about fucking semantics doesn't accomplish a fucking thing.
They want to win elections (critically, they want to fend off primary challenges) and their base is rabidly anti-immigration. Everything else is fairy tales and moonbeams. The old saw about "I'm just opposed to *illegal* immigration" has long been pure BS among the MAGA-adjacent. They don't like immigration, period. (Pat Buchanan was calling for utterly draconian reductions in immigration inflows 30 years ago).
I can provide the names, dates, and injuries of my ancestors who were victimized by the actual Know Nothings. Your own attempt to label those who disagree with you on the semantic use of language is engaging in exactly the transgression you claim to oppose.
I actually like the one deal that was discussed back in the Bush or Obama administrations (I forget which deal it was): If you're caught here without status, you get punished for it, but if you've otherwise been a productive law-abiding member of society, the punishment is in the form of a fine and a requirement to "touch back" in your country of citizenship for some relatively short period of time. I would also exclude these people from any cap on visas or whatever, so no one has (or claims to have) anxiety about how this might displace people who are "waiting in line the legal way."
I agree and would even go further. Why are we morally required to recognize asylum claims? I simply don't see why this is the case. As a non-American you do not have any right to live in America just because things are bad for you back home. And legally this is only the case because of laws in the past, that can certainly be repealed.
Now I'm fine with having asylum in circumstances when we do not have a full-on crisis at the border, but we do have a crisis. So I'd be for anyone, Democrats or Republicans, changing these laws and eliminating the "right" to request asylum. My only qualm is the 70+ American citizens who were deported - there should be some kind of legal process to be able prove your citizenship.
I am a fan of the idea of re-writing our immigration law to be jobs-based. If you are an agricultural worker and we need agricultural workers (or nurses or whatnot) - then come, here is a guest worker visa - come work, pay taxes, and be here legally. Do this for 3-5 years, avoid crime, learn English, and you can take the citizenship exam.
I'm also for amnesty for the "Dreamers", but only for the ones already in the system, not new ones that just appeared out of thin air. I think there are also special circumstances, like Afghan translators who risked their lives for us in the war, to be given visas and paths to citizenship - but this would need to be an act of congress.
"Why are we morally required to recognize asylum claims?"
Because we have to do *something* with that person, and the alternative to letting them stay is deporting them to somewhere where they'll certainly be (say) tortured. And most people think that forcing someone to go where they'll be tortured arguably makes us at least partly responsible for the ensuing torture.
"People won’t die if we make them stay in Canada and Mexico."
Well, that only works if Mexico or Canada agree to accept the person. I mean, sure, if somebody arrives on land, then presumably they aren't an illegal immigrant to their current country (although I'm not sure regarding Mexico's border security). But plenty of asylum-seekers arrive via e.g. a flight to JFK.
I do not think it is a coincidence that the countries with the easiest LEGAL path to residency seem to also have the strictest borders to prevent ILLEGAL paths to residency, and hot damn if it isn't five minutes overdue for a few Democrats to wake up and realize that the two issues aren't the same.
In some places in AZ cross boarder drug and human smuggling has resulted in violence and destruction of property. There are legitimate problems, the issue is 1) our immigration system forces people to bring everyone in a family even if one person just wants to work temporarily and 2) we make the cost of following the law very high relative to breaking it.
Unskilled immigration depresses unskilled wages and increases inequality within the US. Skilled immigration depresses the wages of doctors and other highly paid professionals and compresses the wage distribution generally.
There's virtually no evidence of this if you're talking about persons born in the US. Also, what's an "unskilled" person? Can we use something more accurate, like non-college? Or "industrial worker" or what have you? Anybody in the workforce has *some* skills (else what is their employer paying for?).
But I digress. The point I wanted to make is: the evidence is dismally scant regarding the claim that immigration reduces the wages of US workers, unless we're talking about immigrant workers. (Matt has written on this extensively). And the thing is, if you're a (say) Honduran immigrant making 18 bucks an hour in suburban Denver who might have been making 19.50 with less competition, you're still FAR better off than being back in Honduras where you were only making two bucks an hour (and dealing with massive threats to personal safety on a regular basis).
My economics professors were not lying when they taught me supply and demand. Any denial of this is motivated reasoning and a selective demand for rigor. Reasonable people can debate the elasticity of wages relative to immigration. Only ideologues claim increasing supply has no effect on price.
We've been through this argument a million times. More residents in the continental US leads to more demand- they're now paying for food, clothing, cars, consumers goods, etc.- demand that wouldn't exist if they weren't here. More laborers is both more supply and more demand at the same time.
Do you think US wages would be higher now if we hadn't admitted so many immigrants in the 19th century? Maybe we'd all be making a million dollars an hour if we'd kept all the Irish, Germans, and Italians out? C'mon man
Not that it’s ALL attributable to low immigration from the 1920s to the 1970s, but that just happens to coincide to tremendous wage growth (other than the Great Depression) for average Americans. Both Bernie Sanders and the Danes have argued about a tension between progressive goals and immigration.
It straightforwardly makes both host country and immigrant better off, by a much larger amount than it makes incumbent low skilled workers worse off via wage pressure. It’s good.
Without unskilled immigration, we would have a huge labor shortage. While this would result in some people getting paid more, it would also result in a lot of businesses going under because they are unable to find enough people to work for them. The higher labor costs would also be passed down to consumers, resulting in massive inflation.
I think there are many steps that could be taken that don't include mass deportation. Increased funding for border security, detention facilities and more asylum judges could have been part of the ARP. Stronger messaging that discourages illegal immigration. Working with Mexico to stem the tide.
Shouldn't have ended the Remain in Mexico program, which the Administration did on its first day in office, one of 7 Executive Actions on immigration signed on January 20, 2021, all of which were more dovish on illegal immigration. [see link].
Biden made a mistake about the remain in Mexico policy. I know it’s not ideal, but the alternative with an uncontrolled border is just politically unsustainable.
Biden has taken a more compassionate tack (admirable), but it’s also caused more disorder. And if given the choice between compassion and disorder and harsh and orderly, I think Americans will choose the latter every time.
Trump knows this. Biden MUST make a deal with Republicans, even if some of the policies have to be scaled back later. Status quo simply isn’t going to cut it.
I share your discontent with the policy outcome though I would not phrase it as "Not 'wanting' to reduce illegal immigration." And I share Dara's concern that some future president could try to fix the system at very high economic cost and costs to the rule of law and negative spillover to creating a merit based immigration system that recruits people who willmake large and almost immediate contributions to the economy and society.
This makes me sound terrible, and I'm actually quite pro-immigration, but this article seems to rest on the assumption that no one that wants to immigrate should ever be denied, that no one who has managed to get in illegally ever sent back. My policy preference has always been a compromise involving allowing a path to legal status for those that have been in the country for a long time, and a super fast track for skilled immigrants and those that have studied in the US, in exchange for greatly heightened security and enforcement.
Pro immigration people (again, of which I am one) need to understand that the strongest case against a better immigration system is the sorts of arguments made in this piece, that expressly dodge the substantive questions about prevailing lawlessness. Even those that have been here decades took their chances. This idea that the government enforcing the law to the degree it probably should have always been might overlook some small number of people that unexpectedly have a reason to stay, which they themselves didn't even know about, sounds like a lame excuse for never fixing anything.
Anyway if I were in the admin I would be very inclined to accept a pretty hard line deal provided it gets loads and loads of funding to keep Ukraine in the fight against Russia.
The GOP wants a hardline stance but doesn’t want to fund the state capacity to enact it. They don’t care about the migration issue, hence why they waste money human trafficking people from Texas and Florida to NYC.
Its just another example of their nihilistic no-policy platform from 2020.
You are among like-minded people in this comment section. We all agree today's GOP isn't providing any solutions. But we are disappointed the Democrats aren't proposing any solutions to this problem, either.
Dara didn’t really propose any solutions. She demonstrated erudition and knowledge of the subject but is too horrified by the prospect of Trump enforcing the law to want a functioning immigration system
Very well-written article, Dara.
I vote for Democrats almost all the time, especially at the Federal level. But there are a few issues where I wish I could register my dissatisfaction in a way that doesn't mean voting for the GOP, with border security / illegal immigration being one of them.
At a basic level, I do not believe the Democratic Party, wants to reduce illegal immigration in any meaningful measure. It is only addressed when it becomes a big enough issue that it MUST be addressed, or when it negatively affects places like Chicago or NYC. Immigration reform / border enforcement wasn't part of any Build Back Better proposal, and it wasn't in the IRA that ultimately passed. I believe the goal is to allow illegal crossings, say we just can't afford to process & house them, release them into the US, then after a few years describe them as "long-resident unauthorized immigrants who’ve been living and working in the United States for years" so they garner maximum sympathy.
So, sorry Dara, although your positions are well-reasoned and extremely well-presented, I'm not too worried about the potential that some future President might enforce immigration laws. That didn't happen after the Reagan Amnesty, and it hasn't happened since then.
If the choice were between this and complete demographic stagnation, I’d swallow my concerns and go with this.
But I firmly believe, and I think history on similar topics bears this out, that our choice is between (EDIT: something much worse than the status quo) and a reformed system allowing much more emphasis on skill and potential contribution.
Family/chain migration is going to ensure a stream of a million-odd low-skilled immigrants annually, stretching a decade into the future.
What we need is another million plus doctors, engineers, professors, semiconductor manufacturing experts, construction managers, and accountants, at least 200,000 of whom are permitted in with the explicit goal of taking China’s best and brightest.
We don’t get that without getting control over the current clusterfuck. The GOP will always oppose it but the mushy middle can be brought to see the need and value, if and only if they feel secure on the topic.
Why does history on similar topics bear this out as a possibility? The current skilled immigration system was essentially created by mistake, if you had put to 1965 voters the idea of bringing over hundreds of thousands of (skilled or unskilled) immigrants from Asia they would have revolted. Luckily policymakers did the right thing for the wrong reasons. More recently, we had reform attempts fail in 2006 and 2014, both preceding the MAGA turn of R house members
Crazy to imagine a little over 10 years ago, we had a GOP House kind of negotiating in good faith on a Democratic Senate passed immigration bill.
House Dems didn't know it at the time, but Boehner was actually the best they were gonna get!
AIUI the issue with Boehner was never that he was unwilling to deal, it was that he was incapable of getting his caucus sufficiently behind him to ensure that whatever deal he wished to strike actually passed. It was an internal party discipline issue rather than one of pure intransigence. The Obama administration's problem wasn't with Boehner personally except inasmuch as he couldn't whip his faction into line.
I meant on similar topics in which people needed to feel secure before fundamental reforms could take place. Criminal justice is probably the best example. A lot of what took place during our peak era of urban decay can only be described as abusive towards those accused of crime, and we had to get the problem more fundamentally under control before reforms of any sort could take place.
The 2014 failure was when net illegal immigration was negative, no? And that was pre Trump, so pre party realizing that anti-immigrant demagoguery is effective and popular (doubly so in primaries). I really don’t see the case for optimism here
The GOP had just finished fearmongering and gerrymandering their way to a House majority (fear on healthcare, not immigration) and the 2014 bargain still came within a hair’s breadth of succeeding and would have if the Democrats held the House.
That’s the whole point: the victory condition here is a moderately chastened Democratic House majority and 8-10 GOP senators who can be persuaded that skills-based immigration is a strategic necessity, which means that illegal immigration has to be low salience as it was in 2014.
So all we need is to get the 10th most liberal R senator (>10 after 2024) to adopt positions on Trump’s signature issue to the left of Boehner ‘14. Sounds great!
“ at least 200,000 of whom are permitted in with the explicit goal of taking China’s best and brightest”
That’s how you train up China, unless you have some magical method of actually identifying dissidents. It’s not so easy with the Chinese compared to the Soviets
I mean 200,000 already working adults.
I guarantee we can hit that figure easily; most every professional class person in the country is some combination of worried, unhappy, or mad with the direction of governance and rhetoric in Zhongnanhai.
I think that if you remember right, Trump once complained that we were admitting too many people from 'shithole countries' What he meant by that was that we are letting in a lot of poor folks who don't contribute economically for quite a while. Engineers who aren't poverty stricken contribute right away, both in taxes and in stimulating the economy. So it might surprise you to learn that you agree with Donald Trump and most Republicans on that issue.
What really happens is that Republicans see it logical that you have to stop the bleeding before you can repair the wound. Democrats use twisted logic and want to just pour more blood into the patient first. The author of this article sees that Democrats really don't have any will to stop the flow. Both things have to happen, they just disagree on what has to be done first. It's a no-brainer that legal immigration needs to be easier, and illegal immigration needs to be a lot harder. Clusterfuck seems like a really accurate description of the current situation, but not because Republicans are against higher skilled workers coming here.
There is a sense in which I agree with this and a sense in which I think you're smoking something potent.
Agreement first: There are a lot of issues on which I think the positions and attitudes of the median Republican and Democratic voter aren't nearly as far apart as tribalism, gerrymandering, (mother-fucking-never-sufficiently-to-be-damned) social media, and bloody-minded partisanship suggest. Among them is immigration; most Democrats find the status quo on asylum untenable, and most Republicans understand that robbing the world of its best and brightest is good for us. Fewer understand that it's good for the rest of the world, but who cares? If you left it a sortition-selected panel we'd have a working mid-volume legal immigration system, a reasonably humane but strict asylum regime, and continued but limited family/chain migration in six months. 65% of the electorate would find it perfectly fine and another 10 or 15% would think it acceptable.
Disagreement: Tribalism and gerrymandering mean that it's incredibly difficult for me to envision a world in which the Republican *primary electorate* and thus the GOP caucus can take the lead on pro-legal immigration reform. The Republican primary electorate in many districts opposes "importing" their subordinates or peers. Allowing a bunch of people who will be their "superiors," in the sense that they will inevitably have higher economic and social status than them, into the country is *not* in the cards. I don't particularly care what half-assed, ill-formed, unthinking phrase Trump uttered, to enough (not all, not most, but enough) of his voters a Nigerian doctor, Indian engineer, Chinese manufacturing lead, or Brazilian forensic accountant *is* a person from a shithole country. The GOP leadership is increasingly beholden to that base and cannot buck it, though their Senators can defect from it with some hope of survival if the salience of immigration is low-ish, as in 2014.
I'm not sure what I expect to happen, but a plausible story of the next decade or so is that the Democrats screw up on illegal immigration badly enough to empower the worst voices on the right, who will proceed to fuck the economy up six ways from Sunday with a combination of deficit-busting tax cuts and domestic expulsion programs, in turn allowing the Democrats to sweep back in with a remit to fix legal immigration.
Who the heck knows?
Fair comments. I think that there is opportunity for bipartisan work on this, but you are right, it won't be spearheaded by MAGA types. It also isn't going to be spearheaded by any far left types because, you know, racism.
If we could just get a centrist third party off the ground...sigh.
letting in parents of US citizens seems dubious. why should we be an international retirement home? long term visas for wealthy people who want to retire here seem fine
I think you misread my original comment, I wasn't proposing doing away with it, I was saying that continued family preference alongside a larger stream of skilled immigrants would mean that we still get a million-odd less skilled immigrants each year.
I personally think extended family can be dispensed with entirely and the cut-off placed firmly at parents and minor children who are to be supported by the sponsor. Spouses go without saying, of course.
No one's talking about Biden's omnipotent AI border wall: https://www.axios.com/2023/12/12/border-patrol-ai-us-mexico-wall-surveillance-virtual
Count Trump as #jealous!!!!
The solution to unauthorized immigration is to increase legal immigration and cross border work permits.
Also in most cases migrants commit civil infractions and are not a crime for residing in the U.S., thus illegal immigrant is not an appropriate or accurate. (Not to mention, no person is illegal by just existing. Legality refers to an act.)
But back to my main point, conservatives don’t want a Schengen like agreement with our neighbors, they don’t want to fund the bureaucracy to either process immigration papers OR deportations, and they don’t offer real solutions. They want the problem to fester to bash Democrats on it and do nothing to resolve the problem because they see it as useful for stoking racial animus.
The "solution" you describe is one I would support without reservation. But that is not the solution provided by either Party.
Respectfully, take your "no person is illegal" criticism elsewhere. Some people are criminals because they break the law. Some people are illegal immigrants because they immigrate illegally.
I have a very strong stance against labeling whole groups of people as illegal.
Maybe you should read the Origins of Totalitarianism passages where Hannah Arendt describes how Nazis used rhetoric labeling entire groups of people as inherently illegal and how such language was used to facilitate horrific crimes of violence.
I have already explained why the term is inappropriate since most violation of immigration law are civil infractions. But if you wish to be consistent you must call yourself an ILLEGAL CITIZEN, because I doubt you have never jaywalked, sped, littered, failed to yield, failed to submit an official form in a timely manner, etc.
If he were a citizen via illegal means then perhaps he could be called an illegal citizen.
If I drive without a license call me an illegal driver if you want.
Illegal here is the modified on his status word, not his personage.
A legal immigrant who speeds doesn't become an illegal immigrant because speeding has nothing to do with immigration status.
The idea that calling someone an "illegal immigrant" implied they themselves were illegal never crossed my mind(nor, I suspect, the minds of most others) until people making your argument started saying it must.
It does not make me think less of the immigrants, I'd happily grant them amnesty were it up to me, but it will not convince a Trump voter to support them, and may make them less likely to listen to your arguments.
Excellent point on your last sentence. The line really does nothing but piss off ideological opponents and skeptics (and ideological allies don't need convincing) because it's a bad-faith response to a strawman position not actually held by anyone (and the analogies to driving are apt.). "Classes of persons" defined by acts rather than heredity (and even the staunchest proponents of immigration enforcement would surely acknowledge that, descriptively, jus soli citizenship *exists,* so it clearly is an act-based rather than hereditary status) are not intrinsically suspect -- this is why we have classes like "criminals" or "litterbugs" or "antivaxxers." And while Dan's emphasis on the civil-criminal distinction might suggest that "unauthorized immigrant" is more formally correct than "illegal immigrant," for all practical discussion purposes this seems like a distinction without a difference at the expense of an extra syllable -- there's no ambiguity in either case about the referent of the expression or the conditions under which it applies.
Accordingly, Dan's ideological opponents will--correctly--infer that the slogan is pure euphemism treadmilling in support of nonenforcement.
"And while Dan's emphasis on the civil-criminal distinction might suggest that "unauthorized immigrant" is more formally correct than "illegal immigrant," for all practical discussion purposes this seems like a distinction without a difference at the expense of an extra syllable -- there's no ambiguity in either case about the referent of the expression or the conditions under which it applies."
Dan's argument is the reason why I get so outraged whenever anyone says I was *illegally* parked whenever I get a ticket. It's a civil infraction with an administrative enforcement mechanism you monsters!!!
So you never seen Republicans calling unauthorized “Illegals” or justify shooting them, or justify child separation, or justify open air detention in the desert?
Because that is what the labeling of people as “illegal” facilitates. It facilitates human suffering.
The word "illegals" by itself I disagree with. But that's also partly that they've removed the word that actually should refer to a person.
Calling them "undocumenteds" would also be dehumanizing.
But the combo phrase "illegal immigrants" is fine to me.
You'll never find a way to get people who want to dehumanize to not be able to do it. But running the euphemism treadmill for normies feels more likely to put them off than on, and at best pointless.
The path to totalitarianism is paved by the use of "illegal immigrant" is quite the take, Dan.
Well I prefer not to emulate the rhetorical tactics of Nazis during a period of heightened antisemitism.
And don’t act like the dehumanizing label didn’t contribute to horrific acts like the child separation policy, which in itself eerily resembles some of those horrific acts committed by totalitarians.
My arm hurts when I try to pat myself on the back. I admire your ability to do so, seemingly without pain
Is jaywalking a condition for citizenship? Because otherwise you're just throwing together two unrelated terms to prove a point, which strikes me as such a weak analogy that it actually undercuts the point you're trying to make.
You concede that they're violating immigration law, so now you're just quibbling about whether the act prohibited by law that they committed is criminal or civil to raise an objection to the term illegal. "Individual Whose Immigration Was Contrary to Immigration Law" seems like it can be easily simplified to illegal immigrant. These silly semantic arguments are tiresome and only serve to make people less inclined to listen to any reasonable arguments you want to make on the subject. Changing the accepted vernacular to undocumented immigrant does precisely nothing to change anyone's view on the subject, but now you've wasted all this time arguing over some meaningless triviality.
Illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants. Slaves are slaves. Zionists are Zionists. Reasonable discussion demands calling things by their proper names. Confuscius was right.
And you just disregarded reasoning why such a label is unreasonable and substituted sophistry for reasonableness.
David Abbot is an illegal because he has committed a civil infraction somewhere. A crime against society so great that it’s the only identity he can be ascribed.
You see how this is unreasonable? Do you even care?
I never said anyone is an illegal. I said they were illegal immigrants. If you want to call be a speeder, go right ahead
Uncivil immigrant or infracting immigrant doesn't sound much better, lol. But more seriously...
A word or label will sometimes shape how we feel, but as often or more the meaning of the word of label shifts to reflect what it's describing.
If we all called ourselves illegal citizens, rather than walking around in shame and guilt because of prior jaywalking, the phrase would come to be felt as a joke.
Ironically, insisting that people change their language is a bit on the 1984 side. Especially when the original language is clear. An illegal immigrant is not someone who murdered or stole or raped somebody, it's just a person who immigrated illegally. Whatever new phrase we could come up with, it won't just that some people are here after following a legal immigration process and some aren't, and so language will require terms to distinguish them.
>Uncivil immigrant or infracting immigrant doesn't sound much better, lol.<
"Undocumented immigrant" works perfectly fine.
In many instances so, too, does "migrant."
I use unauthorized because many do have documents that just lapsed.
Lots of people seemed to have taken issue with my disfavor with using the “illegal” framing and disregarded my comments on admirations reforms and funding.
I have read those passages of Arendt and while I understand your point I think you’re reaching with the Nazi comparison.
How dishonest. How lazy.
I provided substance and a policy commentary.
Choosing to disregard that to take offense at the idea someone does not embrace calling people “illegals” is what happened.
Try to be better. Lazy and dishonest political memes are the emptiest form of commentary.
If they entered the country illegally they have literally illegally immigrated. That’s just the most precise and least obfuscating way about it. Ditto if they overstay their non-immigrant visa , with a view to settle permanently in the us against us law. That’s illegal immigration. The person doing so an illegal immigrant. This is in contrast to a legal immigrant. “No person is illegal” is a stupid slogan. No person is legal either, but English has participles and the action of immigration can be done in a legal or illegal manner.
I remember having this exact same debate with my more conservative English teacher in high school. Thinking a bit differently about it now. I guess that's the old adage about being less liberal as you get older...
No, "undocumented" is at least as equally precise—they've migrated without proper documents (visa, etc)—and has the added appeal of not dehumanizing 12 million souls. But the latter part, of course, is the point (not for you personally, but clearly for many).
Orwellian nonesene. The illegal immigration is well documented. And the “proper documents”‘lacking aren’t the issue, the issue is what they represent ie authirizaiton to enter*
It’s like characterizing burglars as “keyless guests”.
Also, if you actually care aboit human rights you ought to learn what dehumanization actually looks like and not cheapen such terms.
(*or rather - authorization to be *considered* for entry by the immigration officer! Strictly speaking a Non immigrant visa isn’t legal entitlement for entry!).
>The illegal immigration is well documented<
Well no, actually, it's not. When a person obtains permission to immigrate to the US, their doing so is documented by the government.
When a person sneaks across the border, their doing so rather obviously isn't.
It's a perfectly anodyne use of the English language.
Let's be honest: you prefer "illegal immigrant" because you think (righty, I suspect) using that terms tends to code a person as having a position or general ideological disposition with respect to public policy on this issue. Which is fine. Continue to use it! It's not the biggest problem in the world in my view.
But to me "undocumented" is more neutral, clinical and, yes, less dehumanizing.
A large part of the people involved had their entry documented in various ways not to mention those overstaying their visa. By contrast 100% of those involved are here illegally. That’s the whole point the literal definition of the group and the basis of the debate. I’m for this term because I’m for precise honest discourse. “Undocumented”’is false , misleading , Orwellian neologism, which only became popularized when far left open borders insanity did.
P.S.
Some real refugees, legally entitled for asylum, may have crossed the border and be temporarily “undocumented” however these aren’t the people we are arguing about- as they have a legal right to be here! By obfuscating on the illegal immigration debate you’re ironically throwing refugees under the bus.
If a person enters the country legally and overstays their visa, there is documentation of their entry into the country and further documentation that they did not leave. A person who walks across the Rio Grande, requests asylum and never shows up for thd hearing is also documented. The issue is they have no legal right to immigrate and their attempted immigration is illegal.
Some illegal immigrants are documented, others are undocumented. If immigration records are somehow destroyed, some legal immigrants may become undocumented, but could still rightly describe themselves as legal. Likewise if certain amnesty bills were passed - some illegal immigrants would instantly become legal, without any chance whatsoever in their documentation status.
I don't think you can describe those situations with your language, so it's not as precise.
There are unauthorized migrants who have committed crimes who have entered, and there are those who have committed civil infractions (most).
Calling them “illegal” immigrants prior to any form of due process and lumping them together with a pejorative label that directly implies criminality is dehumanizing and has been used to justify horrible abuses.
Are you listening to yourself? Did they enter legally? No. Hence they entered illegally. You*know* this is the case. “Illegal immigrant”‘isn’t “criminal immigrant” , it’s “illegal” immigrant, which is very very precise. Obfuscation that flies so obviously against common sense is very very harmful. You’re not helping anyone,, you are alienating many people by insisting on dishonesty and transparent sophistry as the basis for the discourse. Such alienation plays right into the hands of the far right and ironically dramatically increases the chance of the realization of some of the fears you use to justify this distortion of language
Maybe I just don’t like propagating the language of those who just call unauthorized immigrants simply “illegals” and support horrific human abuses?
And maybe you should reread the analogy when you compared breaking civil immigration law to robbery (a felony) before dismissing the “illegal” label and criminality implications?
It isn’t Orwellian to point out the strategies of dehumanization that Hannah Arendt describes appear in this label.
In standard American idiom, "illegal immigrant" very often leads to "illegals" as a noun ("My landlord just evicted a family of illegals on the third floor").
The use of "illegal immigrant" isn't the worse linguistic crime in the world, for sure. But since "undocumented immigrant" is equally precise and doesn't lend itself so easily to anti-immigrant discourse, why not use it? It's better!
It’s not precise, it’s intentionally misleading and immediately flags anyone using it as an engaging in bad faith.
P.S.
To be clear, now that “undocumented” is common parlance on the left, I personally don’t think all using it are in bad faith. But certainly that’s why the term was conceived and is still perceived by many.
Also “illegal” is fine as shorthand. It suggests their presence is illegal which is exactly right ! At the bottom of the “undocumented” propaganda is open borders insanity. Also there are no “linguistic crimes “ (an ironic term to use for someone fearing discourse of illegality!). Only totalitarians think in terms of language crime. Did I mention Orwell already?
Ethics Gradient suggested unauthorized, which I do think is equally precise. But undocumented really isn't, because the cruz of the matter isn't documentation.
If my drivers license is revoked I can be an illegal or unauthorized driver - either is accurate and I don't care which you use. But if you say I'm an undocumented driver I would find the term very confusing. An undocumented driver sounds l like someone who never took a drivers test in the first place or something, I dunno.
What would your response be if it turned out that the people endorsing positions you find distasteful did so regardless of the terminology used because the terminology isn't actually doing any normative legwork?
Then you would have to argue that dehumanizing language does not facilitate human immiseration, but then why do the proponents of targeted human immiseration spend such effort on creating dehumanizing labels and throwing propaganda at their targets?
But you don’t care.
Hence why so many Republicans just use the term “Illegals” and omit any reference to immigration.
This group of people are inherently criminals, therefore child separation, open air detention in the desert, and warehousing people on cold concrete floors without blankets are all acceptable.
The label is designed and used to excuse inhumane abuse. You might argue that it doesn’t contribute to that, but so far the closest I have seen someone come to that is an argument of language drift (though it’s difficult to see how illegal-> criminal->punishment is justified dehumanization links are reinforced with alternative framings.)
"(though it’s difficult to see how illegal-> criminal->punishment is justified dehumanization links are reinforced with alternative framings.)"
Simple- the term "undocumented" is basically a synonym for illegal in the context it is used, but even if it wasn't it's only one stepped removed. "Who are we referring to when we say "undocumented"? We mean immigrants who are here contrary to law, or illegally", lends itself very easily to the linguistic flow of undocumented -> illegal-> criminal->punishment. Your excessive focus on terminology will just mean people end up using a different term to mean the same thing, and if they understand it to mean the same thing then the outcomes are identical.
I strongly suspect that in Dan's hypothesized alternative-terminology world people just develop pejorative slang like "undocs" in lieu of "illegals."
Exactly- I said this back in November on another post, but it seems applicable here so I'll copy-and-paste:
The issue always come back to "what is the intent of the word". If the whole reason a word exists is to insult or a degrade a group of people then sure, change it (this is the category the n-word falls into). But if the word itself is simply a descriptor of some condition that people find sympathetic or are concerned that others will attack the person for then the word isn't the issue, it's the fact that people will attack them for it that's the issue. Changing the term won't change that. Homeless is no more stigmatizing than unhoused- they both describe clearly the condition that the person is in, and some people will, unfortunately, negatively judge the person who is experiencing that condition, regardless of the term that is used. Same with things like retarded or midget- the terms become associated with negative connotations not because the words are problematic but because some people will use them problematically. If you change the word that is used to describe the condition the same problematic people will just adapt and in 15 years time the newly anointed non-problematic word will then be problematic and in need of changing. Descriptive words being constantly altered is utterly useless, and altering them is, as you say, just a silly excuse to police boundaries and define in-vs-out groups. We should move away from words whose initial intent was to insult and degrade, but otherwise we should just accept that language is open to interpretation in ways that mean that some people will find ways to use any language in an insulting and demeaning way.
Right - as an example, there's nothing inherently immoral, disgraceful or inferior about getting caught in the rain and having the shirt on your back get wet . Yet somehow the term I'm alluding to is probably more pejorative than illegal immigrant.
It's all about how it's used, who's using it, etc. A much more famous word beginning with N has a very complex, context-based history of meaning as well. Words carry meanings but we give meanings to words as we use them.
The vast majority of the discourse on this particular thread has nothing to do with solving the problem and everything to do with making people feel comfortable in how they talk about the problem. And that's a problem.
I say "nondocumented person." But that's what *I* say, and arguing (if I may indulge in the rhetorical style of David M-with-too-many-syllables) about fucking semantics doesn't accomplish a fucking thing.
>and they don’t offer real solutions.<
They want to win elections (critically, they want to fend off primary challenges) and their base is rabidly anti-immigration. Everything else is fairy tales and moonbeams. The old saw about "I'm just opposed to *illegal* immigration" has long been pure BS among the MAGA-adjacent. They don't like immigration, period. (Pat Buchanan was calling for utterly draconian reductions in immigration inflows 30 years ago).
Don’t tell that to the Know Nothings that seem to deny the power pejorative labels have to excuse abuse.
And they all know well only the first word gets uttered while the second term seems to disappear.
I can provide the names, dates, and injuries of my ancestors who were victimized by the actual Know Nothings. Your own attempt to label those who disagree with you on the semantic use of language is engaging in exactly the transgression you claim to oppose.
I actually like the one deal that was discussed back in the Bush or Obama administrations (I forget which deal it was): If you're caught here without status, you get punished for it, but if you've otherwise been a productive law-abiding member of society, the punishment is in the form of a fine and a requirement to "touch back" in your country of citizenship for some relatively short period of time. I would also exclude these people from any cap on visas or whatever, so no one has (or claims to have) anxiety about how this might displace people who are "waiting in line the legal way."
It was Bush. They had a Dream Act and Sanders joined with the GOP hardliners to kill immigration reform.
It was a tragedy.
I agree and would even go further. Why are we morally required to recognize asylum claims? I simply don't see why this is the case. As a non-American you do not have any right to live in America just because things are bad for you back home. And legally this is only the case because of laws in the past, that can certainly be repealed.
Now I'm fine with having asylum in circumstances when we do not have a full-on crisis at the border, but we do have a crisis. So I'd be for anyone, Democrats or Republicans, changing these laws and eliminating the "right" to request asylum. My only qualm is the 70+ American citizens who were deported - there should be some kind of legal process to be able prove your citizenship.
I am a fan of the idea of re-writing our immigration law to be jobs-based. If you are an agricultural worker and we need agricultural workers (or nurses or whatnot) - then come, here is a guest worker visa - come work, pay taxes, and be here legally. Do this for 3-5 years, avoid crime, learn English, and you can take the citizenship exam.
I'm also for amnesty for the "Dreamers", but only for the ones already in the system, not new ones that just appeared out of thin air. I think there are also special circumstances, like Afghan translators who risked their lives for us in the war, to be given visas and paths to citizenship - but this would need to be an act of congress.
"Why are we morally required to recognize asylum claims?"
Because we have to do *something* with that person, and the alternative to letting them stay is deporting them to somewhere where they'll certainly be (say) tortured. And most people think that forcing someone to go where they'll be tortured arguably makes us at least partly responsible for the ensuing torture.
"People won’t die if we make them stay in Canada and Mexico."
Well, that only works if Mexico or Canada agree to accept the person. I mean, sure, if somebody arrives on land, then presumably they aren't an illegal immigrant to their current country (although I'm not sure regarding Mexico's border security). But plenty of asylum-seekers arrive via e.g. a flight to JFK.
I do not think it is a coincidence that the countries with the easiest LEGAL path to residency seem to also have the strictest borders to prevent ILLEGAL paths to residency, and hot damn if it isn't five minutes overdue for a few Democrats to wake up and realize that the two issues aren't the same.
What are the negative impacts that you see that demand action?
In some places in AZ cross boarder drug and human smuggling has resulted in violence and destruction of property. There are legitimate problems, the issue is 1) our immigration system forces people to bring everyone in a family even if one person just wants to work temporarily and 2) we make the cost of following the law very high relative to breaking it.
Unskilled immigration depresses unskilled wages and increases inequality within the US. Skilled immigration depresses the wages of doctors and other highly paid professionals and compresses the wage distribution generally.
There's virtually no evidence of this if you're talking about persons born in the US. Also, what's an "unskilled" person? Can we use something more accurate, like non-college? Or "industrial worker" or what have you? Anybody in the workforce has *some* skills (else what is their employer paying for?).
But I digress. The point I wanted to make is: the evidence is dismally scant regarding the claim that immigration reduces the wages of US workers, unless we're talking about immigrant workers. (Matt has written on this extensively). And the thing is, if you're a (say) Honduran immigrant making 18 bucks an hour in suburban Denver who might have been making 19.50 with less competition, you're still FAR better off than being back in Honduras where you were only making two bucks an hour (and dealing with massive threats to personal safety on a regular basis).
https://www.slowboring.com/p/immigration-and-wages
My economics professors were not lying when they taught me supply and demand. Any denial of this is motivated reasoning and a selective demand for rigor. Reasonable people can debate the elasticity of wages relative to immigration. Only ideologues claim increasing supply has no effect on price.
We've been through this argument a million times. More residents in the continental US leads to more demand- they're now paying for food, clothing, cars, consumers goods, etc.- demand that wouldn't exist if they weren't here. More laborers is both more supply and more demand at the same time.
Do you think US wages would be higher now if we hadn't admitted so many immigrants in the 19th century? Maybe we'd all be making a million dollars an hour if we'd kept all the Irish, Germans, and Italians out? C'mon man
Not that it’s ALL attributable to low immigration from the 1920s to the 1970s, but that just happens to coincide to tremendous wage growth (other than the Great Depression) for average Americans. Both Bernie Sanders and the Danes have argued about a tension between progressive goals and immigration.
>My economics professors were not lying when they taught me supply and demand<
That must be why wages in America have been crashing since 1607.
It straightforwardly makes both host country and immigrant better off, by a much larger amount than it makes incumbent low skilled workers worse off via wage pressure. It’s good.
If some of that surplus were directed to low wage workers in the form of social guarantees, I’d be game
Without unskilled immigration, we would have a huge labor shortage. While this would result in some people getting paid more, it would also result in a lot of businesses going under because they are unable to find enough people to work for them. The higher labor costs would also be passed down to consumers, resulting in massive inflation.
I could not have put it better.
So you're OK with mass deportation because you see no other way to break from the cycle? (Sincere question).
I think there are many steps that could be taken that don't include mass deportation. Increased funding for border security, detention facilities and more asylum judges could have been part of the ARP. Stronger messaging that discourages illegal immigration. Working with Mexico to stem the tide.
Shouldn't have ended the Remain in Mexico program, which the Administration did on its first day in office, one of 7 Executive Actions on immigration signed on January 20, 2021, all of which were more dovish on illegal immigration. [see link].
https://cmsny.org/biden-immigration-executive-actions/
Totally agree.
Biden made a mistake about the remain in Mexico policy. I know it’s not ideal, but the alternative with an uncontrolled border is just politically unsustainable.
Biden has taken a more compassionate tack (admirable), but it’s also caused more disorder. And if given the choice between compassion and disorder and harsh and orderly, I think Americans will choose the latter every time.
Trump knows this. Biden MUST make a deal with Republicans, even if some of the policies have to be scaled back later. Status quo simply isn’t going to cut it.
I share your discontent with the policy outcome though I would not phrase it as "Not 'wanting' to reduce illegal immigration." And I share Dara's concern that some future president could try to fix the system at very high economic cost and costs to the rule of law and negative spillover to creating a merit based immigration system that recruits people who willmake large and almost immediate contributions to the economy and society.
This makes me sound terrible, and I'm actually quite pro-immigration, but this article seems to rest on the assumption that no one that wants to immigrate should ever be denied, that no one who has managed to get in illegally ever sent back. My policy preference has always been a compromise involving allowing a path to legal status for those that have been in the country for a long time, and a super fast track for skilled immigrants and those that have studied in the US, in exchange for greatly heightened security and enforcement.
Pro immigration people (again, of which I am one) need to understand that the strongest case against a better immigration system is the sorts of arguments made in this piece, that expressly dodge the substantive questions about prevailing lawlessness. Even those that have been here decades took their chances. This idea that the government enforcing the law to the degree it probably should have always been might overlook some small number of people that unexpectedly have a reason to stay, which they themselves didn't even know about, sounds like a lame excuse for never fixing anything.
Anyway if I were in the admin I would be very inclined to accept a pretty hard line deal provided it gets loads and loads of funding to keep Ukraine in the fight against Russia.
The GOP wants a hardline stance but doesn’t want to fund the state capacity to enact it. They don’t care about the migration issue, hence why they waste money human trafficking people from Texas and Florida to NYC.
Its just another example of their nihilistic no-policy platform from 2020.
You are among like-minded people in this comment section. We all agree today's GOP isn't providing any solutions. But we are disappointed the Democrats aren't proposing any solutions to this problem, either.
Dara didn’t really propose any solutions. She demonstrated erudition and knowledge of the subject but is too horrified by the prospect of Trump enforcing the law to want a functioning immigration system
I thought she fairly clearly proposed funding more asylum officers.