1. Within reason, yea pretty much. If we had sane government, I'd be in favor of, say, 10x increases on all types of immigration over the next 10 years. This means hi tech workers, low tech workers, families of current immigrants, amnesty for illegal immigrants, everything. The economy will adapt, and we'll find a way to make use for them.
Ah. Well i fundamentally disagree with you as we would have a refugeee and immigration crises that would be near apocalyptic. We would not have 10x immigration. We would have hundreds of millions of people pouring in to the United States as they flee Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Property value would instantly rise to a degreee such that only the ultra-mega rich could afford even a dump, and those of us who are already property owners would likely form a new caste where only those of us who have already purchased property could afford to live in a city.
Our food production, public health services, infrastructure, and environment would be completely overwhelmed and the government would be helpless to stop it.
"Within reason" is unreasonable to me. You're just saying "increase immigration it'll be good". What if it isn't? Your argument largely centers around more immigrants == better economy, but that's assuming we actually will have jobs for them, and that they don't get stuck in cultural ghettos and then turn to crime or radicalization. A society that is not culturally homogenous is not a very strong one.
Instead of taking in all these people, we should make where they live not a miserable place to live. I enjoy the population density we have in the United States. I have 0 interest in accelerating our population levels.
Or maybe I should. Since I own property I'll just get rich off of it. Hmmm.
There is nothing wrong with immigration or immigrants per se, but we really need to be careful with the rhetoric and think through our immigration policy and how it affects us at home, and how it affects those around the world.
Okay, I'm not taking the piss - let me ask you an honest question.
10 years of 10x immigration would be 100,000,000 people, so about 11 cities the size of New York of 100% new immigrants. Such masses could not possibly assimilate to any significant degree; they'd obviously form huge enclaves.
Presumably you'd want to live amongst them, and you would not preferentially move to a neighborhood of people with your culture and upbringing and language. Fair enough.
My question is, instead of bringing them to America, why don't you just go to them? You could move to Brazil. Or India. These places are incredibly diverse. You could do it this year and you'd have your desired result immediately.
You're obviously not attached to anything about American people or culture, so what keeps you here?
What makes Indians or Brazilians special in that they can't eventually integrate as is the case with previous waves or Irish and Eastern European immigrants? Surely if American culture is so fragile that immigration would break it then it would have happened already.
At my current job around half the people are immigrants, or children of immigrants. I'm sure company wide it's similar. They don't bite.
When I went to college it was 30% asian, and they didn't bite either. There were brown kids and black kids, and many foreigners.
I don't think what makes America special is country of origin or the appearance of the people who live here. A lot of anti-immigration sentiment has undertones (or overtones) of xenophobia. This is understandable--foreigners are weird and unknown, and some parts of America are 95%+ white with few/no immigrants, or only European immigrants.
> 10 years of 10x immigration would be 100,000,000 people, so about 11 cities the size of New York of 100% new immigrants. Such masses could not possibly assimilate to any significant degree; they'd obviously form huge enclaves.
Ok, maybe 10x is too much, maybe the number should be more like 5x. This would require some sane policy from state and local governments. In the Bay Area, where I live, this would mean substantially increasing housing stock and density. It may mean other things for other localities. Maybe there are limits based on income level. But the target should be, if someone wants to come here and make a better life for themselves, they should be able to.
If someone is willing to leave their country and move to America, we can make it work and it can be a win-win for both sides.
This is only good if the rest of the world is in a similar state to America. If we were talking about just the West and Japan, sure. "Anybody from India who wants to move here we can make it work". Great, now salaries for software engineers in SV are going to drop in half because there are a ton of developers who can fill jobs here, yet Americans don't want to move to India. (Just using India as an example).
There has to be equilibrium or it's a policy that will drive down worker wages, increase the wealth of the 1%, and leave the United States crowded and poor.
You didn't answer the question clearly. It seems your answer obliquely is that you don't want it for yourself, you want it because it'd benefit the immigrants.
>They don't bite.
I grew up in a class of around 50% children of immigrants. I'm aware that they don't bite.
But, it's nice of you to instantly assume that I'm a xenophobic person just because I question your policy ideas on immigration. Of course the person who wants 20x immigration would assume the same thing about you, and then you're in the left-wing purity spiral. So let's just leave off the insinuations of personal flaws, okay?
>the target should be, if someone wants to come here and make a better life for themselves, they should be able to.
Your basic goal of helping the world is good. But your convictions have completely disconnected you from the strictures of reality.
Your goal isn't coherent. If your target is 5x immigration, then you're not even close to your stated goal of accepting everyone who wants to come. 5x immigration would be about 5 million per year. Africa alone adds 30 million people per year via births over deaths. If 1/3 of those want to enter, then you haven't even absorbed most of the population growth of one continent, much less helped existing Africans, or anyone from anywhere else.
The entire Western world (USA, Canada, Australia, Europe) is about 15% of the world population. It is simply impossible that 15% of the people can save 85% of the people by absorbing them. Even if only, say, a third want to come, it's simply mean dissolving Western countries and leaving the third world without any help or guidance at all.
If your goal is to help people in other countries - which is a good goal - you need to start approaching it with solutions that can actually work. We have to help them grow where they're planted.
>If someone is willing to leave their country and move to America, we can make it work and it can be a win-win for both sides.
This is such a fairy tale. Not every person in the world shares your values. What if that person hates democracy and want to usher in a global theocracy?
1. People contribute to the economy. More people means the economy grows faster.
2. Lots of people would come to USA if it was easier for them to do so.
Of course if you are China or other USA competitor, you want low USA immigration, so that people stay in your country, and grow your economy instead.