I didn't want to get into the economics debate, because it is indeed complicated. More so than either of us understand, or anyone without an economics degree and many, many hours of research. But, what I do know is that it's not as bad as you're making it out to be. Some economists would even suggest that it's a good thing for the country, though I wouldn't go that far.
You cite that there is impact people don't even consider. There is also impact that you don't consider; positive impact.
From my knowledge of the situation, when you weigh the economic negatives and positives, it comes out slightly negative, rather than vastly negative as you suggest.
Yes, the illegal immigrants take jobs that would otherwise be filled by Americans. Businesses hire them because the illegal immigrants are cheaper. In the immediate short term, yes, American jobs are taken up by illegal immigrants, and Americans are hurt.
But you can't just look at the immediate short term. The result of cheaper labor for businesses is higher profit for the business and cheaper goods for the consumer.
With the higher profit for the business, the business does not just take the cash and call it a day. The business will use that money to invest in becoming larger and more profitable. This means hiring more workers to their expanding company.
With the cheaper goods for the consumer, the consumer has to spend less to buy the good, so now the consumer has more money. This makes everyone who buys the good effectively richer. When this happens with common goods such as food and clothing, everyone becomes effectively richer by spending less money.
This is why I keep suggesting to immediately tax them, while trying to help them through the naturalization process. This would fix this issue.
I have looked at a lot of data and speculation behind our current economic situation, and very few point to illegal immigration as being a significant factor at all, and none point to it as a key factor.
Do you have any research to support this, or are you just saying it because you think it proves your point?
That is a very strict way of dealing with crime. That is historically completely different from how our country's legal system operates. We start with a minor punishment, which gets much more harsh for repeat offenses. If someone steals a candy bar, we don't ban them from shopping ever again.
If you feel that there should be a very harsh punishment for every crime, then you have a belief that is very unpopular in this country. It would therefore not gain enough support, and is not a practical solution to our immigration issue.
I watched the video. Both you and him seem to assume that the United States has an extremely limited amount of resources, which is currently at its maximum.
That is simply not true.
When people enter the country in any way (legal immigration, illegal immigration, birth), yes, we need more resources to support them. You keep citing public services. But what you're not saying is that as the number of people increases, the tax revenue will increase proportionally to the needed services.
If you argue that the illegal immigrants are not paying taxes to support these public services, then this is true. That is why I keep saying that we need to get them to pay taxes immediately while helping them through the naturalization process.
You keep saying we will run out of "resources". Can you please be more specific on what resources we will run out of?
By the way, a positive population growth is a good thing. Not a huge one, mind you, but a small one (such as ours). Countries such as Japan (negative population growth because they don't allow immigration) are trying to get their citizens to have more children. This is because with negative population growth, the new generation cannot support the old one as well.
If we didn't have any immigration, we'd have a negative growth rate as well.
Besides, I don't know why you think that there will be people everywhere lying in the streets. The US is huge compared to the number of people we have here. We have plenty of room.
You take a piece of my argument and pretend it is my entire argument. I was only saying that you can't stop all terrorists because you said that that letting just one terrorist in is terrible. I never said we shouldn't try and stop terrorists.
My full argument is that securing the borders would not be an effective halt to terrorists entering the country, as many more come through airports, and they are overall undetectable. Securing the borders will have a very small impact on the number of terrorists entering the country.
In short, securing the borders will not significantly reduce the number of terrorists entering the country, so terrorism is not related to the argument.
That' like saying nobody should give birth, because the baby might commit crime.
That's because you haven't proved or even mentioned that illegal immigrants produce more crime by percentage than the rest of the population.
And that's because they don't.
If you don't believe me, here is some research:
"In the 1980s and 1990s researchers have concluded, or at least have lent support to the conclusion, that immigrants commit proportionately no more than and possibly even fewer crimes than native-born citizens. The General Accounting Office, analyzing FBI records, found that foreign-born individuals accounted for about 19 percent of the total arrests in 1985 in six selected major cities.8 The foreign-born represented 19.6 percent of the aggregate population. While "foreign-born" can mean refer to citizens as well as aliens,9 the study makes an implicit case that immigrant crime is in line with the rest of the country.
Kristin Butcher of Boston College and Anne Morrison Piehl of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, using 1980 and 1990 Census Public Use Microdata Samples, found that among men aged 18-40 immigrants were less likely to be in correctional institutions than the native-born.10 If native-born men had the institutionalization rates of immigrants with the same demographic traits, the former's institutionalized population would be only two-thirds the current size. The authors added that immigrants who had arrived at an earlier point in time were more likely to be in prison than recent entrants. This stood in contrast to the prevailing view of labor economists that earlier immigrants were more successful, and hence less likely to see crime as a substitute for gainful employment.
Butcher and Piehl conducted a separate study of several dozen U.S. metropolitan areas.11 Using data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the Census Bureau�s Current Population Survey, the authors found recent immigrants had no significant effect either on crime rates or the change in rates over time. In a secondary analysis of individual data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, youths born abroad were significantly less likely than native-born youths to be criminally active.
John Hagan of the University of Toronto and Alberto Palloni of the University of Wisconsin also found a weak link between immigration and crime.12 Examining criminal justice data in two U.S. border cities, El Paso and San Diego, Hagan and Palloni argued immigrants are disproportionately represented among prison inmates because of biases in processes that lead from pre-trial detention to sentencing. The criminal justice system views immigrants as potential "flight risks," they noted, and thus detains many suspects who otherwise (as citizens) would not be detained. The authors concluded that incarceration rates, depending on the national origin of the criminal, exaggerate by anywhere from three to seven times the crime rates of immigrants relative to citizens.
INS data, recently made available at the request of the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees that fund the agency's budget, show a lower recidivism rate for immigrants. Of the 35,318 criminal aliens INS released from custody (but not did not deport) during October 1994 and May 1999 there were 11,605 who went on to commit new crimes. This recidivism (repeat offender) rate of 37 percent was well below the 66 percent figure for the U.S. criminal population for the comparable period.13 This discrepancy did not dissuade Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., the respective subcommittee chairmen, from pointing to the data as evidence of INS's incompetence and disregard for public safety; Rogers' response was particularly harsh. Yet neither refuted the existence of the gap in recidivism. "
-Taken from the Center for Immigration Studies website.
You can argue "should" all day. The fact is that they are. It has been decided, legally. I already provided research to prove that they are. You are arguing that 2 + 2 shouldn't be four. You can argue that it should be eight, it should be six, but either way it is still four.
Like I said, I was just nit-picking. It really isn't relevant, I just wanted to point that out.and while my citizenship was just given to memy FAMILY CAME HERE LEGALLY.. struggled VERY HARD through TOUGH TIMES... so i fail to see how that is relevant in ANY way..
