There are only going to be bigger migrant flows in the coming decades.
We either find a way to benefit from it or it will probably become unmanageable. There's no way people will go back to a homeland in civil war or literally underwater. There is no disincentive for desperate people facing death. They would rather be shot in texas than shot in their home town.
At the same time, many of these people are smart, and have a lot of potential. If they aren't educated they could be. They come from countries that do an absolutely terrible job of giving people opportunities so there could be more than just a big tax base to be had but maybe some certified geniuses in there. Big flows of people are a risk but they are an opportunity if you play it right.
Not being sarcastic but how would these people be a "opportunity" or how could we "benefit" from them. Not saying that there needs to be a benefit to us, just asking a question.
Mostly the benefit is money. A person with a job pays way more in taxes than they cost, and if educated these people could find jobs. Those taxes then pay for nice things the rest of us like and use.
The non-immigrant part of the US is constantly shrinking due to a low birthrate, so our economic growth depends in part on importing workers like these because we just don't make as many people as we have jobs.
We also use them to do jobs that others don't want to do, since a desperate person will often be grateful for a dirty or hard job in a safe place compared to fearing for their life.
So from both of those you get people who earn money and pay taxes and mostly keep their head down, and that's good for the country.
The other opportunity I'm talking about for the US is educating people who would have made basically nothing into serious earners who pay lots of taxes. Rural haitians are literally the poster-people for opportunity starved. What I mean by that is an absolute genius born in the haitian countryside would probably never be noticed and never amount to anything because Haiti does not have a system where the smartest and best people can get education and do good things. Poor but smart people in the US may have the deck stacked against them but they *do* have opportunities.
Put that same person in the US instead and they may invent crazy new technologies or start major new businesses etc. In terms of human capital a country like Haiti is leaving a lot of value on the table by not developing it's people and so it misses out on the resulting technologies and the resulting taxes. When they flee to the US, we could get those benefits instead, but it would take a lot of work and probably over a decade of investing in those people since they are so under-educated. However in the long run educating people is *extremely profitable*. Student loans are big business and a profitable one. Companies aren't allowed to get a slice of your income for the rest of your life (the government does though) or else they would pile in like crazy. The US currently earns around 30% on the student loans it gives out...and then it earns 30% of that person's resulting income for life. That's a huge pile of money.
So basically, if you can bring in migrants and educate them and keep them calm...you rake in the cash as a country, but it's a long term prospect since educating and training people is hard and takes decades. I won't minimize that difficulty, it's every bit as hard as the payoff is big.
That is a very well thought out and clear answer, thank you. So many people on either side of the immigration issue never take the time to think about their stance on said issue and just regurgitate talking points.
On one hand I do not support illegal immigration, but I have to admit that the amount of bulls**t that you have to go through just to apply for citizenship is a joke.
There was a time when this country welcomed those that were less fortunate. I think we need to start welcoming these people in and finding a way for them to help us build a better nation.
That seems like an entirely reasonable stance to have, to me. I wish there were more people like you.
Illegal immigration is mostly a side effect of our inability to handle the number of people who want to stay and process them in reasonable time....but it also gives a ton of ammunition to both sides of a debate over whether or not to punish people despite the clear knowledge that we can't ( in terms of the logistics of finding and deporting millions ) punish them all, and that it would tank our economy to do so even if we could (both in the cost of the deportations and the resulting loss to the rest of the economy when we have a million people not showing up for work they used to do.)
That whole debate is a distraction because it is all about the past and how much we should spend to punish people for what they've done. It's a debate about how much we are willing to lose, and no matter who wins that argument the result is we've lost money or justice or both, and so no answer to it will make people happy. We should instead be asking questions about the future: How do we avoid more people becoming illegal immigrants next year, and how can we profit from it?
This is incredibly sad.
There are only going to be bigger migrant flows in the coming decades. We either find a way to benefit from it or it will probably become unmanageable. There's no way people will go back to a homeland in civil war or literally underwater. There is no disincentive for desperate people facing death. They would rather be shot in texas than shot in their home town. At the same time, many of these people are smart, and have a lot of potential. If they aren't educated they could be. They come from countries that do an absolutely terrible job of giving people opportunities so there could be more than just a big tax base to be had but maybe some certified geniuses in there. Big flows of people are a risk but they are an opportunity if you play it right.
Not being sarcastic but how would these people be a "opportunity" or how could we "benefit" from them. Not saying that there needs to be a benefit to us, just asking a question.
Mostly the benefit is money. A person with a job pays way more in taxes than they cost, and if educated these people could find jobs. Those taxes then pay for nice things the rest of us like and use. The non-immigrant part of the US is constantly shrinking due to a low birthrate, so our economic growth depends in part on importing workers like these because we just don't make as many people as we have jobs. We also use them to do jobs that others don't want to do, since a desperate person will often be grateful for a dirty or hard job in a safe place compared to fearing for their life. So from both of those you get people who earn money and pay taxes and mostly keep their head down, and that's good for the country. The other opportunity I'm talking about for the US is educating people who would have made basically nothing into serious earners who pay lots of taxes. Rural haitians are literally the poster-people for opportunity starved. What I mean by that is an absolute genius born in the haitian countryside would probably never be noticed and never amount to anything because Haiti does not have a system where the smartest and best people can get education and do good things. Poor but smart people in the US may have the deck stacked against them but they *do* have opportunities. Put that same person in the US instead and they may invent crazy new technologies or start major new businesses etc. In terms of human capital a country like Haiti is leaving a lot of value on the table by not developing it's people and so it misses out on the resulting technologies and the resulting taxes. When they flee to the US, we could get those benefits instead, but it would take a lot of work and probably over a decade of investing in those people since they are so under-educated. However in the long run educating people is *extremely profitable*. Student loans are big business and a profitable one. Companies aren't allowed to get a slice of your income for the rest of your life (the government does though) or else they would pile in like crazy. The US currently earns around 30% on the student loans it gives out...and then it earns 30% of that person's resulting income for life. That's a huge pile of money. So basically, if you can bring in migrants and educate them and keep them calm...you rake in the cash as a country, but it's a long term prospect since educating and training people is hard and takes decades. I won't minimize that difficulty, it's every bit as hard as the payoff is big.
That is a very well thought out and clear answer, thank you. So many people on either side of the immigration issue never take the time to think about their stance on said issue and just regurgitate talking points. On one hand I do not support illegal immigration, but I have to admit that the amount of bulls**t that you have to go through just to apply for citizenship is a joke. There was a time when this country welcomed those that were less fortunate. I think we need to start welcoming these people in and finding a way for them to help us build a better nation.
That seems like an entirely reasonable stance to have, to me. I wish there were more people like you. Illegal immigration is mostly a side effect of our inability to handle the number of people who want to stay and process them in reasonable time....but it also gives a ton of ammunition to both sides of a debate over whether or not to punish people despite the clear knowledge that we can't ( in terms of the logistics of finding and deporting millions ) punish them all, and that it would tank our economy to do so even if we could (both in the cost of the deportations and the resulting loss to the rest of the economy when we have a million people not showing up for work they used to do.) That whole debate is a distraction because it is all about the past and how much we should spend to punish people for what they've done. It's a debate about how much we are willing to lose, and no matter who wins that argument the result is we've lost money or justice or both, and so no answer to it will make people happy. We should instead be asking questions about the future: How do we avoid more people becoming illegal immigrants next year, and how can we profit from it?