> If you want to just drop a kid down so they become a citizen, it is a hundred times easier to do it on a travel visa and it always will be. Regardless of how many state green cards there are, it will always be orders of magnitude easier to get a travel visa, hop on a plane, and stay under the radar for a couple months.

That requires that you can afford to buy a plane ticket and then spend nine months not working while paying US cost of living and pregnancy-related medical expenses out of pocket, which puts it out of reach for most people in the world. An easy-to-get work visa turns the economics around.

And it's not just people who come here exclusively for that reason. More people means more children. If the additional people are unskilled laborers who make low wages and pay little in taxes, someone else has to make up the difference.

> When I said immigrants pay more into taxes than they take out that was was a statement of fact[1], not opinion. They pay the same taxes as us and see severely reduced benefits, even at very low incomes.

The article is only considering social security against itself. Someone making $20K/year is paying <$2500/year in social security tax. One child in public school is four times that in itself.

> Cut federal benefits entirely for them and require the states to pay if you like. It's a tiny problem.

Take away the federal money and the states won't be able to afford it. Or won't want to pay it. The problem isn't social security, it's schools and healthcare.

And it's not like you can just leave children to grow up without schools or let infections go untreated.

> If cross-border crime and employment is a problem it would be pretty trivial to have an exclusion zone on the border of states that don't want immigrants. Immigrants wouldn't be able to have residences in that area.

For many states (e.g. Pennsylvania, New Hampshire) a 100 mile exclusion zone would have multiple other states fully inside it.

>That requires that you can afford to buy a plane ticket and then spend nine months not working while paying US cost of living and pregnancy-related medical expenses out of pocket, which puts it out of reach for most people in the world.

Uh... It requires literally none of those things. You can get into the US on a car, train, boat, bicycle or a good pair of chanclas. You certainly don't need to be here nine months to have a kid. You can certainly find work in that time, and emergency medical care is "free". And while yes, it means more people, those people are a far cry from new immigrants and their numbers can still be limited federally. And regardless, with 12 million immigrants here already, the number of births won't be changing much any time soon.

I think you're rather missing the forest for the trees with the rest.

> You can get into the US on a car, train, boat, bicycle or a good pair of chanclas.

What does it buy you to trade one expensive ticket for another? I don't think you're seriously suggesting that walking here from even Central America is not a large impediment, to say nothing of the unconnected continents where the large majority of people actually live.

> You certainly don't need to be here nine months to have a kid.

The alternative is to get a travel visa when you're already pregnant, in which case the government can observe what you're attempting to do and deny the visa.

> You can certainly find work in that time

Working on a travel visa is illegal, therefore harder to do and lower paying.

> and emergency medical care is "free"

That implies going through a pregnancy with no access to non-emergency medical care (e.g. ultrasound), risking the life of the child.

> And while yes, it means more people, those people are a far cry from new immigrants and their numbers can still be limited federally.

Either you're increasing the number of unskilled immigrants or you aren't.

>Take away the federal money and the states won't be able to afford it. Or won't want to pay it. The problem isn't social security, it's schools and healthcare.

>And it's not like you can just leave children to grow up without schools or let infections go untreated.

Having actually looked it up, federal funding is only 13% of public education ie it would be absolutely trivial to require states to fund state green card immigrants. Likewise emergency healthcare isn't federally subsidized. Plus, it's highly unlikely that allowing this program would actually even increase the number of immigrants we have, just make the illegal ones legal.

Your arguments are completely strawmen.

> Having actually looked it up, federal funding is only 13% of public education ie it would be absolutely trivial to require states to fund state green card immigrants.

You're forgetting that the federal money goes disproportionately to schools in poorer areas, i.e. exactly the schools in question and the ones who can't afford to lose the money.

> Likewise emergency healthcare isn't federally subsidized.

Well that's the other problem, isn't it? It is subsidized but the subsidies are indirect. Every time someone goes to the emergency room without paying, the price goes up for ACA-subsidized private insurance and Medicare.

And the same for the lack of non-emergency coverage resulting in people running around without vaccinations and carrying untreated contagious infections.

The only real fix would be for the state to pay for all the immigrants' healthcare.

> Plus, it's highly unlikely that allowing this program would actually even increase the number of immigrants we have, just make the illegal ones legal.

It can't not. The program makes it easier to be an unskilled immigrant. Supply and demand says if you lower the cost the quantity will increase.

If you set a quota at the current number then you aren't actually solving the problem, because more will come hoping to get one of the slots and then you have more people than slots. If you set no quota then the number goes up even more.

Title 1 federal funding is $1000 per disadvantaged student. It's an insignificant amount of money compared to state funded education. Any state funding is totally irrelevant because the states will decide that problems. Likewise healthcare is funded inside states. You're confusing the issues.

ACA premiums are a good point, as they do apply to permanent residents. Empirically this would result in decreases in costs due to preventative treatment, but politically it is a sticking point. Medicaid (not medicare, which is for retirees) is not affected.

Regardless, the point is not to engineer a perfect solution, its to make an improvement by moving the burden of illegal immigrants in red states to blue states. The burden is lowered more than would be otherwise be allowed. This would remove 90% of the burden.

>If you set a quota at the current number then you aren't actually solving the problem, because more will come hoping to get one of the slots and then you have more people than slots. If you set no quota then the number goes up even more.

The inflow of illegal immigrants is 25x smaller than the number of current illegal immigrants. The people who want to be here are already here. In economic terms the elasticity of human survival is very low. The supply is nearly constant regardless of how easy it is to get in and stay. 96% of illegal immigrants are here already. Even if it becomes twice as attractive to come into the US under this system, 92% of the people moving to blue states will already live in the US.

It is far more likely that this would be a minor attraction- the ability to get a social security card is a tiny improvement to your quality of life compared to escaping violence and poverty. It is far more likely that immigration, legal or not, will not be affected significantly. Even if this makes moving to the US 25% more attractive, 95% of immigrants will already live in the US.

> Title 1 federal funding is $1000 per disadvantaged student. It's an insignificant amount of money compared to state funded education. Any state funding is totally irrelevant because the states will decide that problems.

Total education funding per student is north of $10,000/year. Regardless of what percentage was state vs. federal, without the federal funding the state is paying the whole $10,000. That's the state's problem, but that doesn't give the state a solution. If you add a new child whose parents don't own any property to pay local property tax on, where does the extra $10,000/year come from?

> ACA premiums are a good point, as they do apply to permanent residents. Empirically this would result in decreases in costs due to preventative treatment, but politically it is a sticking point. Medicaid (not medicare, which is for retirees) is not affected.

They're all affected. If someone goes to the emergency room without paying, the cost gets distributed across everyone who does pay, including Medicare and private insurance. It doesn't matter that the person who didn't pay wasn't a retiree; the retirees and Medicare pay the resulting higher costs the same as everybody else.

> Regardless, the point is not to engineer a perfect solution, its to make an improvement by moving the burden of illegal immigrants in red states to blue states. The burden is lowered more than would be otherwise be allowed. This would remove 90% of the burden.

Figuring out how to move the burden isn't the hard part, it's how to shoulder it. California would lose the federal money, but at the same time become more attractive for the immigrants who are currently in Arizona or Nevada, which will increase the amount of services they have to provide (the whole amount, not just the federal share) even before there is any new immigration into the country as a whole. Where do they get the money?

> The inflow of illegal immigrants is 25x smaller than the number of current illegal immigrants.

The total number is derived from the inflow. If you double the inflow the result over time is to double the total number.

> It is far more likely that this would be a minor attraction- the ability to get a social security card is a tiny improvement to your quality of life compared to escaping violence and poverty.

There are many places you can go to escape violence. People come here for higher pay, which is exactly what being able to legally work most affects.

>Regardless of what percentage was state vs. federal, without the federal funding the state is paying the whole $10,000. [...] If you add a new child whose parents don't own any property to pay local property tax on, where does the extra $10,000/year come from?

That's a cost that people are very willing to pay. This system would allow states to choose exactly how many kids they want to pay for. You seem like you're trying to argue against immigration in general, which is beside the point. I just want states to be able to make that choice for themselves.

Even in the worst case, if states took in all new immigrants and paid for 100% of their public education, that would still be a better solution because it gives them the option of choice. Like I've been pointing out, it's very likely that we already pay for the education of 90%+ of the newly-legal immigrants we would experience, and the states already pay for 90% of that education. The current system forces states that don't want immigrants to pay for them- this system would reduce that 100 times. It's effectively deportation of 99% of the illegal immigrants in red states to blue states.

>Figuring out how to move the burden isn't the hard part, it's how to shoulder it. California would lose the federal money, but at the same time become more attractive for the immigrants who are currently in Arizona or Nevada, which will increase the amount of services they have to provide (the whole amount, not just the federal share) even before there is any new immigration into the country as a whole. Where do they get the money?

That's fully just an argument against immigration. You're saying that California shouldn't or wouldn't choose to accept more immigrants. I'm just saying they should be able to make that choice. Even if California suddenly decides that despite having the strongest economy in the US they are going to give up their beliefs in immigration, there is no downside to this system.

>They're all affected. If someone goes to the emergency room without paying, the cost gets distributed across everyone who does pay, including Medicare and private insurance. It doesn't matter that the person who didn't pay wasn't a retiree; the retirees and Medicare pay the resulting higher costs the same as everybody else.

So... nationalize them and make them join ACA, so that it's paid for. The current system is the one where their emergency medical care isn't paid for.

>The total number is derived from the inflow. If you double the inflow the result over time is to double the total number.

The short term -the period in which illegal immigrants are nationalized in blue states- is the only one that matters. Here's why: In economic terms we currently have deadweight loss. The political "price" of importing immigrants is too high- leading to undersupply in blue states and oversupply in red states. Once illegal immigrants are dealt with this system means that every state will be importing exactly as many immigrants as they want.

>There are many places you can go to escape violence. People come here for higher pay, which is exactly what being able to legally work most affects.

That's inaccurate. People come to America because there is nowhere else to go. We accept more people than any other area in the world- over twice as many as the EU until recently. Refugees from Syria and elsewhere come here because every other country has turned them away. Good or bad, that is a deeply historical characteristic of the US and its what most people want.

Central American immigrants fit the profile of economic migration better- the median income in America is 6x higher than in Mexico. On the other hand, America is the closest and safest country for those people, and just moving here definitely qualifies as "escaping violence". The top two countries by murder rate are Honduras and El Salvador, and of the top 20 spots 14 are in Central America/Caribbean and 3 are in South America. Even in Mexico the murder rate is 4x higher. Poor in the US can be dozens or hundreds of times safer than poor in central America.