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How Do We Fix Immigration?

Peacenik

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Decades and decades of immigration, both legal and illegal have brought us to this point in time. Immigration has built our nation, but some people think immigration is destroying our nation. Congress has failed to act during both Republican and Democratic majorities.

What needs to be done?

What should Congress do?

Let's hear all the ideas.

Maybe we can brainstorm a solution.

Here are some ideas, all over the map:

Focus on areas of agreement (discussion at link)​

Enforce laws in good faith (discussion at link)​

Provide path to citizenship (discussion at link)​

End birthright citizenship for illegal families (you guessed it)​


USA Today: What's the big idea? 4 proposals to reform America's immigration system
 
Decades and decades of immigration, both legal and illegal have brought us to this point in time. Immigration has built our nation, but some people think immigration is destroying our nation. Congress has failed to act during both Republican and Democratic majorities.

What needs to be done?

What should Congress do?

Let's hear all the ideas.

Maybe we can brainstorm a solution.

Here are some ideas, all over the map:
Greet them at the border with a smile, a path to citizenship and a job application.
 
Decades and decades of immigration, both legal and illegal have brought us to this point in time. Immigration has built our nation, but some people think immigration is destroying our nation. Congress has failed to act during both Republican and Democratic majorities.

What needs to be done?

What should Congress do?

Let's hear all the ideas.

Maybe we can brainstorm a solution.

Here are some ideas, all over the map:

Immigration is a complex issue, and I don't have the silver bullet. But I do know that the longer we demonize nonwhite immigrants, the longer we will refuse to solve immigration challenges.
 
No advice from me. I write from a country, Sweden, and a continent, Europe, which is in the process of being destroyed by now irreversible Muslim immigration. At least the US has, for the time being, little to fear from Islam.
 
Greet them at the border with a smile, a path to citizenship and a job application.
I agree. That would solve so many problems. Social Security gets funded. Millions of new workers get to work making America greater. Our economy would really take off in a healthy way. Just think of all the businesses and jobs that would get created.

Immigration is what built America. Immigration can rebuild America better.

But the hateful conservatives wouldn't like that. They would never agree. They want to put up walls and go into isolation.
 
No advice from me. I write from a country, Sweden, and a continent, Europe, which is in the process of being destroyed by now irreversible Muslim immigration. At least the US has, for the time being, little to fear from Islam.

Utter nonsense. You're not being "destroyed" by anything but hate.
 
No advice from me. I write from a country, Sweden, and a continent, Europe, which is in the process of being destroyed by now irreversible Muslim immigration. At least the US has, for the time being, little to fear from Islam.

Darn. I liked Sweden. Hate to see it go. But seriously, is it really actually being destroyed? Or is it simply changing as is the nature of everything? Just because an individual likes something the way it was when they were a kid doesn't mean there is any rule that it has to stay that way. Or that it will.

The only thing that is constant is change.
 
Decades and decades of immigration, both legal and illegal have brought us to this point in time. Immigration has built our nation, but some people think immigration is destroying our nation. Congress has failed to act during both Republican and Democratic majorities.

What needs to be done?

What should Congress do?

Let's hear all the ideas.

Maybe we can brainstorm a solution.

Here are some ideas, all over the map:
Simple enough question with what seems like an insurmountable task.

It is an excellent question.

I feel all the issues of fixing, reforming, solving "immigration" however on wants to frame it begins, has to begin, with we the people making it ISSUE NUMBER ONE so much so that our Elected representatives have no doubt their political lives depend on it.

Then the question is how do we the people make it ISSUE NUMBER ONE.

That my friends is going to take some heaping helping of doing.

It isn't like the uprise in "git er done" among us after our complacency was shattered on 9/11.

Unresolved immigration issues are like slow seepage of rain water from above in a cave that creates the mineral columns that take untold millennia to grow.

It is not an issue that makes folks get up and do something like demand action in D.C..
 
My idea is to do all of this at once in one sweeping bill:
  • 5 year path to citizenship for illegal residents who are free of criminal history
  • $30B for border security (one time) and +$10B/year to CBP and ICE for enforcement
  • Increase legal immigration to a rate such that legal immigration + birth/death rate = 3% annual population growth
  • Mandatory e-Verify. Business owners / officers can be held personally liable for violations. 1 year period to ramp.
I don't expect any of this to happen because neither party is particularly interested in changing the immigration status quo.
 
I agree. That would solve so many problems. Social Security gets funded. Millions of new workers get to work making America greater. Our economy would really take off in a healthy way. Just think of all the businesses and jobs that would get created.

Immigration is what built America. Immigration can rebuild America better.

But the hateful conservatives wouldn't like that. They would never agree. They want to put up walls and go into isolation.
They hang onto the belief that any gain by someone else may take from them. The puzzling part to me is the idea that things are not going to change for them, if they can just hold the line. I'm sure that thought was prevalent in France during 1788 as well.
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Darn. I liked Sweden. Hate to see it go. But seriously, is it really actually being destroyed? Or is it simply changing as is the nature of everything? Just because an individual likes something the way it was when they were a kid doesn't mean there is any rule that it has to stay that way. Or that it will.

The only thing that is constant is change.
You will not have heard that we have just had three days of serious rioting in several Swedish cities by Muslim immigrants, mostly 1st and 2nd generation it seems. The rioters were nearly all young men, cheered on by large numbers of women and children. The immediate cause was the threat by a Danish/Swedish idiot called Rasmus Paludan to burn a Koran.

The polis, several of whom were injured, were unable to stop some police cars, and many other vehicles, from being burnt.
 
Simple enough question with what seems like an insurmountable task.

It is an excellent question.

I feel all the issues of fixing, reforming, solving "immigration" however on wants to frame it begins, has to begin, with we the people making it ISSUE NUMBER ONE so much so that our Elected representatives have no doubt their political lives depend on it.

Then the question is how do we the people make it ISSUE NUMBER ONE.

That my friends is going to take some heaping helping of doing.

It isn't like the uprise in "git er done" among us after our complacency was shattered on 9/11.

Unresolved immigration issues are like slow seepage of rain water from above in a cave that creates the mineral columns that take untold millennia to grow.

It is not an issue that makes folks get up and do something like demand action in D.C..
Immigration is dividing our nation. It has become the third rail of politics. There is no pleasing everyone, no coming up with a universally accepted solution. Anybody who takes a stand immediately alienates at least half the nation.

Republicans want a lily white male dominated Christian nation where all others are less.

Democrats want an inclusive nation that works for everybody. All races, sexes, orientations, cultures, religious views, lack of religious views, basically - freedom.

Republicans talk about freedom, but only for whom they select. And they are very selective.

Democrats embody true freedom for everyone, as much as can be had with the understanding that one person's freedom ends where it begins to affect others.

Diversity is a much better idea than isolationism.
 
Utter nonsense. You're not being "destroyed" by anything but hate.
Says an arrogant know-all from a position of complete ignorance.
 
Says an arrogant know-all from a position of complete ignorance.

Going straight to the ad homs without making a single intelligent comment. Good, I didn't want to mistake your position as being a worthy one.
 
For starters.......make it a federal crime with mandatory jail time to knowingly hire an illegal alien who does not have a permit to work in the U.S

No job??? They wont come here to begin with......and employers won't give them a job knowing that if they get caught hiring them ....they are going to jail.

End of problem...................

Then...institute a better guest worker program with permits then we have now. Foreign nationals can come here , apply to work and fill jobs Americans don't want to do. When the permit is up....time to go home to your country.

This way we know who they are and why they are here and when they are leaving......and make the "leaving' part stick!
 
If you can find two people in this country from different political parties that can agree on an immigration plan I will support it. Meanwhile, the border crisis is great PR for the GOP so what's their incentive to do anything while Biden is in office?
 
They hang onto the belief that any gain by someone else may take from them. The puzzling part to me is the idea that things are not going to change for them, if they can just hold the line. I'm sure that thought was prevalent in France during 1788 as well.
View attachment 67386670

Conservatives seem to want to conserve a point in time, which is not possible. That's why they are always so frustrated and uptight. They keep trying to do the impossible, chasing a myth.

No wonder Trump resonated with them. They want to go back to an earlier time, a time they now believe was 'great.' But when you ask them to give a year when they thought America was great, no answer. They can't define it.

If you could go back in time to when they thought America 'was great' (if they could ever identify a year) they didn't think it was great at the time, probably ranting about communists in the throes of McCarthyism. And they had separate drinking fountains for blacks. 'Great,' hunh?
 
If you can find two people in this country from different political parties that can agree on an immigration plan I will support it. Meanwhile, the border crisis is great PR for the GOP so what's their incentive to do anything while Biden is in office?
Their incentive is to loudly bemoan anything Biden does or tries to do and to very quietly vote against any legislation to help the situation that the Dems try to pass.
 
You will not have heard that we have just had three days of serious rioting in several Swedish cities by Muslim immigrants, mostly 1st and 2nd generation it seems. The rioters were nearly all young men, cheered on by large numbers of women and children. The immediate cause was the threat by a Danish/Swedish idiot called Rasmus Paludan to burn a Koran.

The polis, several of whom were injured, were unable to stop some police cars, and many other vehicles, from being burnt.

And somehow people taking issue with their religion being attacked is 'destroying Sweden?'

Obviously, attacking a religion in a nation with that religion represented is like throwing gasoline on a fire.

People need to back off. Live and let live. We can't go back in time.
 
Conservatives seem to want to conserve a point in time, which is not possible. That's why they are always so frustrated and uptight. They keep trying to do the impossible, chasing a myth.

No wonder Trump resonated with them. They want to go back to an earlier time, a time they now believe was 'great.' But when you ask them to give a year when they thought America was great, no answer. They can't define it.

If you could go back in time to when they thought America 'was great' (if they could ever identify a year) they didn't think it was great at the time, probably ranting about communists in the throes of McCarthyism. And they had separate drinking fountains for blacks. 'Great,' hunh?
That certainly seems to be true of many of the Conservatives I personally know and of many I have heard or read in other ways.
 
Stop pretending borders matter or that the kind of states created by Westphalia can or should survive the current trends.
 
I don't understand how so many members can't or won't understand the economic effects of mass immigration.

I see a lot of people saying "more people to do the work, thus more taxable income and more production... etc."

But the truth is that much of American "low-skilled" production has been farmed out to overseas nations, like Indonesia, China, Sri Lanka, India, to name a few.

They work for such low wages, that even when counting shipping costs American businesses make big profits.

Even major production, like compute parts, auto parts, automobiles, steel, etc., has shifted overseas.

That leaves mostly a service economy, and that is filled with dead-end jobs as waiters, cooks, salespeople, etc. Oh and "management" positions for same.

Flooding the country with mostly unskilled or low skilled immigrants only makes it harder for our own LOCAL citizens to compete for those jobs.

That is only ONE of the many issues that unbridled and/or increased immigration presents.

There are all the additional cost issues of a welfare state that will append.
 
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Simple enough question with what seems like an insurmountable task.

It is an excellent question.

I feel all the issues of fixing, reforming, solving "immigration" however on wants to frame it begins, has to begin, with we the people making it ISSUE NUMBER ONE so much so that our Elected representatives have no doubt their political lives depend on it.

Then the question is how do we the people make it ISSUE NUMBER ONE.

That my friends is going to take some heaping helping of doing.

It isn't like the uprise in "git er done" among us after our complacency was shattered on 9/11.

Unresolved immigration issues are like slow seepage of rain water from above in a cave that creates the mineral columns that take untold millennia to grow.

It is not an issue that makes folks get up and do something like demand action in D.C..
I bet everybody understands it is an impossible situation for which they believe there is no solution so it is simply used as a wedge issue to blame the in-power party; and motivate hateful Republican voters who think the guys mowing their lawns have more power to make economic life difficult for them than the rich and powerful who get their way in Congress.
 
I bet everybody understands it is an impossible situation for which they believe there is no solution so it is simply used as a wedge issue to blame the in-power party; and motivate hateful Republican voters who think the guys mowing their lawns have more power to make economic life difficult for them than the rich and powerful who get their way in Congress.

Except is it NOT "an impossible situation."

We can do what prior Administrations attempted without completion (not just the last Administration, nor only those led by Republican Presidents). That is seek to build barriers along the southern border, which include both active and passive monitoring.

However, we'd also need to set up ready reaction forces to apprehend/counter border crossings. Meanwhile beef up the Immigration processing system to weed out the legal from the illegal, and the true "refugees" from the criminal trespassers.

That would include increasing Immigration Court processing personnel to speed up the process. Finally set up an expulsion relocation program to ship illegal entrants right back to their country of origin, rather than simply pushing them back across and letting them repeat illegal entry.
 
For starters.......make it a federal crime with mandatory jail time to knowingly hire an illegal alien who does not have a permit to work in the U.S

No job??? They wont come here to begin with......and employers won't give them a job knowing that if they get caught hiring them ....they are going to jail.

End of problem...................
And the beginning of a new problem of having to pay for heavily expanded federal prisons full of business owners. Side problem - businesses going belly up because owners got locked up, Americans laid off. Taxes not paid, more people on the dole.

Then...institute a better guest worker program with permits then we have now. Foreign nationals can come here , apply to work and fill jobs Americans don't want to do. When the permit is up....time to go home to your country.

This way we know who they are and why they are here and when they are leaving......and make the "leaving' part stick!
That would be better if it was a pathway to citizenship. If someone comes here to work, they put their labor into making America great.
 
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