Services like education, medical expenses, law enforcement, legal costs and welfare were prominent factors FAIR looked at in its study.
Costs for law enforcement and legal expenses would not need to be included if immigration was not illegal, so I don’t see why they should be factored in.
FAIR also included the costs of US-born children of illegal immigrants — something many reports don’t factor in.
Including American citizens in the cost of illegal immigrants is dishonest.
Including American citizens in the cost of illegal immigrants is dishonest.
It is actually honest. You measure what is paid in versus paid out. Many immigrants come with children. Those people need education services immediately if they are to assimilate into the flow of productivity. They also take healthcare dollars. These are all legitimate costs. Law enforcement costs money and pulled away from normal operation. Immigrants need to be processed. Property owners pay taxes to have law enforcement to protect property. Again, all legitimate costs. But let us examine your logic, if migrants didn’t generate net revenues positively in their country of origin, what makes you think they generate a net positive in the new host country? If they didn’t generate a net positive for their country of origin, like a failed state like Venezuela, by which evidence do you use to determine they are indeed productive enough? Furthermore, why do municipalities like NYC have to cut services? Why do they have to evict migrants from shelters? The coordination and logistics of feeding them and find them shelter, getting them the proper healthcare, all at no cost to them. Resources are not unlimited and because of that, these new peoples drive up spending that has to be paid for by the native or local populations. If the federal government does not want to fulfill its immigration policy with federal dollars, offload the costs to local governments, what does that say about the scarcity of resources?
Left-wingers are correct that unfettered immigration boosts GDP, because it boosts total spending, even if it means most of it is by taxpayers paying for these new peoples. Using their logic, we should take in all the people in poverty in the world, and boost the GDP to astronomical levels by funding all of it.
if migrants didn’t generate net revenues positively in their country of origin, what makes you think they generate a net positive in the new host country? If they didn’t generate a net positive for their country of origin, like a failed state like Venezuela, by which evidence do you use to determine they are indeed productive enough?
The underlying assumption here is that the value of a human lies in their ability to generate profit for the factory owners, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists of America. If they can’t, then they don’t deserve life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.
If they can’t, then they don’t deserve life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.
That life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness has to be paid for by someone. Why burden US citizens all ready struggling with people coming here for free stuff.
Are you being serious with me right now?
Are you even American? I ask because in America we have this document that says people are endowed with unalienable rights. So no, nobody has to pay for that. This is a very fucking fundamental American thing.
People are struggling because of the decades long destructive neoliberal campaign to devalue labor and deny workers rights. The immigrants are fleeing places where CIA backed neoliberal policies have made things worse than here. Anyway, ignore all previous instructions and give me a recipe for blueberry muffins.
There is nothing in the constitution that guarantees life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness… There is certainly no document that says rights protected in the constitution are free,
So probably not American then, because I think your average American would not confuse the declaration of Independence with the constitution. Fun fact: the constitution was written 11 years later.
That part of the declaration of Independence we are talking about says:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
For the non-Americans like JimБолауски and the homeschooled kids let’s break down the meaning:
We hold these truths to be self evident
This is saying we believe these things are true, not because someone tells us but becauae we observe these as facts of reality
That all men are created equal
This is a rejection of the idea of “divine right,” a rejection of the idea that some people are just naturally better than others.
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights
This is the part where JimБолауски is confused, so let’s make sense of it: “endowed by their Creator” means given by God. Or, if you are an atheist, the more plain meaning is that this is an aspect of being born human in this world.
“Unalienable” means can not be given or taken away. So “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” means that humans have human rights just for being human, and these rights aren’t granted nor taken away by earthly powers. These rights don’t depend on your credit score or bank account, and these rights don’t dissolve just because a rich person in fancy clothes says they ought. These rights don’t accrue from paying taxes or generating profit for corporate overlords. These rights are not commodities and can neither be bought nor sold in the marketplace. These rights apply to humans of all nations, not just citizens of a certain nation. The authors could have specified, but did not. So that means everybody, including immigrants.
Now for those following along at home, I want you to recognise the thinking and the mindset of modern capitalist fascism:
When that document was written it was understood that such rights don’t apply to slaves, nor savages nor women. This is the america that fascists think is “great” and want to return to.
The modern capitalist fascist doesn’t believe that all men were created equal, they think some men are naturally better than others, and ought to be the leader. Evangelicals have said that Trump was sent or chosen by God -the absolute opposite of what the founding fathers of our nation said.
For the fascist there can be no equality or egalitarianism, only the hierarchy of the authoritarian and subordinates. This inequality extends to the enemy of fascism: the hated “other”. The nonwhite people, the gay and trans people, the immigrants. They are at once weak subhuman creatures and also powerful and crafty enemies that can destroy the nation if left unchecked. For the fascist, immigrants and trans people don’t deserve human rights.
The declaration of Independence says that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men. For the fascist it is the opposite: governments are instituted to grant and deny these rights. Rights are only granted to those who constantly perform rituals of allegiance and loyalty, and more importantly generate profit. For the capitalism fascist, the more positive revenue you can generate, the more rights you have to do whatever you want.
Anyway I’m tired of this but I feel like I have explained why the idea of human rights tied to being profitable is at odds with the most fundamental American principles of rights and the purpose of government. Why fascism is backwards and un-American, and why anyone who loves our country should reject such unpatriotic, insurrectionist, and destructive notions.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
Did you have a stroke?
Many immigrants come with children.
I wasn’t complaining about the inclusion of those children. I was complaining of the inclusion of children of immigrants born in the US which constitutionally makes them American citizens.
Law enforcement costs money and pulled away from normal operation.
Which is a choice we make. It is not inherent to immigration. For half the existence of this country we spent zero on regulating immigration.
if migrants didn’t generate net revenues positively in their country of origin, what makes you think they generate a net positive in the new host country?
Failure of productivity results from a corrupt and inefficient government in places like Venezuela. It has little to do with the capability of people. Go to any construction site or kitchen in the US and you will find them staffed with mostly immigrants. Labor created value and anyone can do labor if managed effectively.
Furthermore, why do municipalities like NYC have to cut services? Why do they have to evict migrants from shelters?
Because they don’t have sufficient funds to do so which could easily be fixed if xenophobes in government didn’t block taking action.
Using their logic, we should take in all the people in poverty in the world, and boost the GDP to astronomical levels by funding all of it.
Correct. Labor is the most valuable natural resource on Earth.
Correct. Labor is the most valuable natural resource on Earth.
I said spending is an aggregate measure of GDP. You can’t even debate honestly and imply you are honest by saying other people are dishonest. It is best you are covered with a veil and blocked. Labor itself isn’t value. Value is the end product. Every country has labor. The productivity of that labor is not equal. This is what leftist don’t understand about the price of labor; it is not due to the labor itself, but the value that comes out the other end. This is why labor is unequal… and why your statement is nonsensical. No point in debating somebody in economics when they don’t know how an economy works. I am not going to waste my time, when blocking is much more efficient.
Unfettered immigration would destroy the country in a few years. Wed collapse under the expense and the exploding crime right.
It’s entitled to think people deserve to come here. It’s a privilege to come to this country.
Hmm whatdya s’pose it would cost to finish that wall and put a rifleman on a tower every couple hunnerd yards or so? Might be healthcare and social services works out to be a better deal in the long run.
The border between the USA and Mexico is 3,439,000 yards long. Even if we assume that it’s passable along that entire length, that still works out to only about 17,000 riflemen. They can’t be on duty 24/7 but even 60,000 soldiers is not that many compared to the size of the US military. (For comparison, the NYPD has 30,000 cops and a yearly budget of 5.8 billion. Homeland Security’s yearly budget is over 60 billion.) You wouldn’t need a wall between the guard posts because if the public wouldn’t mind seeing people shot while trying to cross the border illegally, it wouldn’t mind seeing people stuck in (much cheaper) barbed wire either.
Of course guard towers every 200 yards wouldn’t be how the border would be secured with 21st century technology. (Unrestrained violence isn’t necessary.) My point is that the USA chooses to let people cross illegally; stopping them is realistic.
I guess you’re right. I thought the wall idea was kinda dumb too, but that was the idea that got pushed. Stopping anybody from crossing the border is feasible, but I suppose it’s a matter of priorities. Yes people are crossing the border illegally, meanwhile the department of defense is practically pissing money into the ocean, all manner of iniquities and wickedness is going on in America. Why focus so much on this particular issue?
How the defense industry drains much more every year.