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No federally elected Democrat is arguing that,

Multiple elected Democrats in the House and Senate are for totally open borders and minimum wage at $15.

Just the facts, man.

So for you, "No babies in wire cages" == open borders. You are a fucking idiot :-)

ICE has only existed since 2003, so I guess that means pre-'03 the US had "totally open borders"?

God, the stupid just wafts off you, haha!

No federally elected Democrat is arguing that,

Multiple elected Democrats in the House and Senate are for totally open borders and minimum wage at $15.

Just the facts, man.

Actually, we do. In fact, immigrant households use nearly twice the benefits as citizens.

That's pretty misleading. They use it twice as often. It doesn't mean they're using twice as much. They also don't qualify for federal benefits until they're almost able to get citizenship, so it's not relevant to this discussion.

Cost of living is much higher in Finland than most of the US.

Actually, the costs are really quite similar.

You need to compare different states. CoL in Mississippi is a lot lower than California. Since we're talking about federal UBI, nothing prevents those who find it too difficult to live on $500 / mo. in San Francisco from moving to Jackson.

Not to mention you completely excluded state welfare spending, which if converted to UBI as well would significantly reduce the need to spend it at the federal level.

So we're going to spend more at the State levels? Or is UBI to replace all existing welfare plans?

We already spend on welfare at the state level. That spending can be used by each individual to supplement UBI from the federal level to reach a livable income. E.g. if states already provides $200 / month in food assistance, then the federal government only needs to spend $300 for a combined total of $500.

There are about 217 million people between the ages of 18 and 65 - UBI recipients.

We're not giving anything to illegal immigrants and visa holders. Maybe not even to permanent residents (though some might naturalize anyways to get the benefit, which is not a bad thing).

Actually, we do. In fact, immigrant households use nearly twice the benefits as citizens.

Cost of living is much higher in Finland than most of the US.

Actually, the costs are really quite similar.

Not to mention you completely excluded state welfare spending, which if converted to UBI as well would significantly reduce the need to spend it at the federal level.

So we're going to spend more at the State levels? Or is UBI to replace all existing welfare plans?

There's nothing wrong with them wanting that, but if you let them come and immediately give them handouts, that's what they'll come for and we'll go bankrupt trying to take care of them all.

Where's you're evidence for this? Immigrants pay taxes, just like everyone else. Immigrants are also less likely to take advantage of public services. If you look at something like social security, illegal immigrants are a boon for the system, because they are contributing to something that they will never be able to take advantage of. There are many, many economic benefits from immigration, and if we didn't have lots of immigration, we would be facing the same problems Japan is having. If you look at the GDP projections over the next few decades, the US is going to struggle to maintain economic dominance, just because population is exploding in many other countries, and GDP growth is tightly related to population. When you think about it, there are only two ways to increase GDP: add more people, or increase your per-capita GDP. China, India, and many countries in Africa have massive population growth, and are simultaneously improving per-capita GDP rapidly. Clamping down on immigration, which has made the US what it is, is going to slow our economic growth at a time when many other places are accelerating and becoming far more competitive.

But what the liberals are proposing now simply won't work. You can't have everyone come and then also take really good care of them.

Liberals aren't generally proposing this - they've voted regularly in favor of increased funding for border security.

You're conflating immigrants with illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants as a group are less likely to take advantage of us. Illegal immigrants, and anchor babies, are far more likely to take advantage. By mixing the positive stats of legal immigrants with the negative stats of illegal immigrants you're painting a rosy picture that isn't true. Indeed it's this type of shady use of language that keeps many Americans from understanding the true impacts of illegal immigration. Citations: https://cis.org/Report/63-NonC... https://www.washingtonexaminer...

About 24,000 criminals caught entering the US. That's quite a few - and about a 10% recidivism rate a well... Most are those are outside the official ports of entry - about 500,000 arrests in FY2018 outside the ports of entry. And at least 15 terrorists have crossed the SW border.

But let me ask you - do you lock your doors and windows when you leave? If not - do you advertise that you leave your doors and windows unlocked?

> My background: I'm a legal immigrant and I actually researched that stuff before immigration, in case I needed it.

Welcome. I bet you thoroughly researched what you're entitled to, what you're supposed to get. Here's the thing - illegal immigrants are not *allowed* to be in the country, yet they are. What they are *allowed* to do and what they actually do are very different. By the very definition of "illegal immigrant".

Quoting from the State of New York web site:

  -----
  Whether illegal aliens can obtain state benefits is not clear-cut. The short answer appears to be that they are not legally entitled to most benefits, but do in fact receive them. ..
A fair interpretation of the federal statute and state regulation must result in the conclusion that illegal aliens should not receive any form of state public assistance. However, illegal aliens do, in fact, receive state public benefits. That's because the burden of determining lawful status in the U.S. is on the shoulders of county social services employees who have neither the legal jurisdiction nor the practical ability to determine one's immigration status. Only an immigration official or federal worker whom the Secretary of Homeland Security has authorized may determine the immigration status of a person in the country.
----

> That's up to states, they can't dole out federal money to illegals.

It's unlawful for them to release people who are fugitives from the feds, but they do it. It's official written policy in many places. They "can't" issue cards allowing people to sell illegal drugs, but they do it. It's not lawful to dole out federal money to these same illegal immigrants, but it is common.

Quoting Politifact:
--
Cortes said "We have right now ⦠in the state of California, 55 percent of all immigrants are on public assistance."
Thatâ(TM)s true of households but not individual immigrants.
--

Here's an interesting study (not an objective source, but reasonable methodology)
https://cis.org/Report/63-NonC...

https://cis.org/Can-Border-Wal...

Maybe you are not skilled or poorly skilled in Google Foo but it is widely accepted that it isn't a complete waste. It is hard to put a cost benefit analysis on security. For instance, every year almost every town in the US spends more on police and fire resources than those expenditures directly generate in revenue savings or increases.Does that seem like one of the dumbest ideas those governments have implemented?

First off - illegal immigrants don't have access to existing "socialist" programs. What makes you think they'd have access to new ones?

But they do have access to some medical benefits. Their kids go to publicly funded schools and they receive refundable child tax credits. Then there's the benefits they're not supposed to receive, but do anyways, since the burden of disproving their immigration status lies with the agency that's handing out welfare, and they're not qualified to do so.

Most likely people call you names because they think your "simple facts" are just partisan lies.

Oh yes, and **their** partisan uninformed opinions totally justify their immature, nasty behavior. The ends justifies the means, does it?

I think it's telling that you didn't list any names when you claimed "many democrats(sic)" where calling for open borders. When I looked for Democrats who were calling for open borders, do you know what I found? Republicans who say Democrats are calling for open borders. Maybe it's just the skeptic in me talking, but I'm not inclined to take the word of Republican politicians and pundits on what the other party actually wants.

Just like democrats didn't back socialism before, but only now they do? Sure, not all the democrats are calling for open borders, and it's been exaggerated; but there is a disturbingly growing contingent that is doing just that. https://cis.org/Feere/Report-O...
I'm pretty sure these people don't vote R.

You know, that's not actually a left wing position, there are right wing parties in other countries that realized that treating other people as their equals works better than constantly trying to limit who qualifies as fully human. Also, treating other humans as less than human is pretty much the definition of evil.

The point is, the left changed on that position, far more than the right. We're talking about what changed.
But besides that, denying traditional marriage, but not domestic partnerships or civil unions isn't particularly "less than human" treatment.
Leave the hyperbole at home, kids.

So given your statement, I understand that you weren't old enough to vote 10 years ago.

Not only is your statement non-nonsensical, you illustrate your fundamental lack or unwillingness to understand.
Democrats have often been accused of socialist tendencies, I've seen that firsthand over the past decades. It was also emphatically denied with no small amount of offense; today it's declared the new face of the party.

No, just no. Your opinions are just too ridiculous. In fact, both the Democrats and the Republicans have moved to the right over the last 20 years. You could figure that out if you wanted to by looking at what policy positions they supported, but you'd rather cherry pick a few things that you think support your desired answer like a clueless child would. When you've conducted (or at least read) some longitudinal studies that show whether and if so what shift in the policies supported by each political party has taken place, then you can come back and try to pretend that you're an adult again.

Hysterical. Democrats have moved to the right? You're not even fucking credible. When you cannot accept the obvious but reject it as "opinions" because it doesn't fit with your contorted confirmation bias, you may have a psychosis. And oh, there's the first insult, insinuating I'm a "clueless child". Well, there's a shock. It's always the Leftists that throws the first stone, isn't it? That's fucking hilarious, because in reality I'm very likely closer to twice your age and have long shed the blind ignorance and smugness that endears youth to idealistic liberalism.
Nothing has moved to the right over the years. Nothing. Not one fucking thing. I "cherry picked" nothing, but cited the most prominent, significant changes in society.
So go ahead, name some things that are now more conservative than liberal in the last 20 years.
Can you do it like an adult this time, or are you going to try to condescend to me again?

As for the Trade Deal, Trump already supports TPP and literally said he wants guest workers to do your jobs to a bunch of supporters at a rally (that went over about as well as you'd expect, but his approval rating still hasn't budged).

It went over fine. Because he said they have to go back. Funny how you omitted that.

you don't think that's stuff matters? And this has nothing to do with isolationism. It's the exact opposite. We're prepping for a war. How is that isolationist?

As for the Trade Deal, Trump already supports TPP and literally said he wants guest workers to do your jobs to a bunch of supporters at a rally (that went over about as well as you'd expect, but his approval rating still hasn't budged).

America is exactly what it's always been, a global empire by and for our ruling class. Trump didn't change that, but no, we don't want it. Trump I'll remind you didn't win the popular vote. We are not a Democracy

And, to your ignorant bias, this was not funded by a far right group -- grow up.

The H1-B visa system is completely broken, a pizza cook can be granted for working at a Papa John's location. A H1-B visa holder falso used the immigration to get his back pay, the entire time the US government did not even question whether a pizza cook should even have a H1-B visa at all. Took some digging around but SRV Pizza is just a holding company for Papa Johns franchise.. https://cis.org/North/Governme... http://www.all-pizza.com/phila...

...tell me keeping the illegals out won't save more money that the wall costs.

Here's a report from the Center for Immigration Studies that attempts an estimate at how much illegals cost vs. the cost of a wall. There are a million caveats on the data - there's a lot we don't know, but it's something. It concludes that further securing our border would pay for itself pretty handily. (They estimate that if it stopped 9-12% of illegal crossers, a $12-15B wall would be paid for in a decade.)

For the record, I think that spending $12-15B on border improvements is excessive.

Probably because of the circles you run in, here's some data to refute your anecdotes. Poverty is also quieter then success.

As I said, it can take over a decade to get a green card, and longer to get citizenship. It's not easy. We have an unknown number of H1-B workers, but it's probably over 600,000 (as of 2011), probably more now. So saying that green cards and citizenship are 'available' is ignoring reality. Most workers on H1-B are trapped in that status, and as long as they are they cannot fight back against poor working conditions or unequal pay... and that is depressing wages more than any other single factor.

If you're sinking all your time into a low paying job instead of an education then that's your problem.

Because such an education costs nothing, and magically pays all your bills. And people don't need things like "food" or "shelter" while getting an education. Also, if you make the "right" choice and get a STEM education, there aren't more STEM graduates than entry-level job openings. (This site claims 1.55 graduates per job opening)

Oh wait, absolutely none of that is true. Huh. Almost like reality doesn't quite fit your model.

That's nonsense. Immigrants have always been subject to inspections and requirements to fit societal standards. Storekeepers and others also freely practiced discrimination (Jews, Irish, Germans, Asians, etc.).

http://www.history.com/news/9-...
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-...
http://www.museumoffamilyhisto...
http://journalofethics.ama-ass...
http://cis.org/HistoryIdeologi...

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with either side on this debate. I'm saying that the setting of standards and rejecting immigrants who fail to meet those standards is well established in American history (sometimes with tragic consequences).

His administration also deports a lot more Illegal mexican immigrants than the two previous administrations combined.

That's actually a lie that even President Obama admits is just a statistical stunt to try to shade the numbers. Actual deportations are at a long-term minimum.

Those people have two basic choices- starve to death or steal the money from the rich.

False dilemma. We are importing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants today, because — we are told — we must fill jobs, that Americans, allegedly, "just will not do"... Am I supposed to sympathize with your hypothetical "starving unemployed", who'd rather rob me, than take an honest job, which an illegal immigrant is happy to take?

History has shown us, starving people WILL rob & kill the wealthy to survive.

Has it shown us this? Citations?

But stipulating for a second it has... Your idea is to stave off such murders and robberies by paying off all of the potential robbers in advance? Is that, how you you'd advise all blackmail victims to react?.. What was that about surrendering an important liberty for the sake of temporary security — and losing both and deserving neither?.. Do you recall?

But, fine, since you are — refreshingly as well as commendably — not wrapping yourself in the flag of fake charity, let's discuss the hard cold numbers. Since waging the "War on Poverty" over 50 years ago, we've spent well over $20 trillion tax-dollars (inflation-adjusted) on various poverty-fighting programs. That's well over $400 billion per year on average in today's dollars. We are also losing about $200 billion each year to crime and crime-fighting.

Now, how much of a crime-increase will the complete abolition of the government's anti-poverty efforts cause? Even if it flat-out doubles the crime-rate — thus doubling the crime-related costs — we'll still save about $200 billion every year. But, of course, the crime will not "double" — just as it did not halve, when we started this ill-fated "war". If anything, it increased back then...

Which society do you want to live in?

I want a society, where criminals are harshly prosecuted and the innocents aren't compelled to pay them off, thanks for asking.

H-1B visas were intended to give STEM companies a way to recruit the absolute best and brightest in high-end fields - when those skills are not available locally.

This was intended for research and engineering positions - PhD stuff.

Instead the program was abused to artificially increase the labor supply of half-price IT admins and code monkeys. If these visa holders are the best and the brightest, why do these visa holders end up on the low-end of the pay scale?

http://www.cis.org/PayScale-H1...

The easiest way to fix the H1B1 is to ensure that it is used for its intended purpose. Make the MINIMUM salary for an H-1B holder $150,000/yr and adjust it up annually with the CPI.

This would fix the H-1B visa abuses overnight.

routine collection and analysis of fingerprints, iris scans, and facial images are helping to ferret out terrorists and immigration fraudsters [emphasis mine] all over the world

You don't say...

Gone are the days of entering a country with a false passport and wearing a wig and a mustache to hide your true identity.

Nonsense! James O'Keefe has crossed the border masquarading as Osama bin Laden. And thousands of serious "undocumented Americans" do that without even any attempts to disguise themselves — and do not encounter much molestation neither during nor after the act.

TFA tells us, the technology to fight it is there. Now we just need the will to use it — instead we currently have a will not to.

Whoops. Someone else was having a 9 mile long minimum wage argument with me; I thought this was a moving goalposts thing. My bad.

The hell? Remember when 80% of the workforce used to be farmers? Then they moved more towards factories. Do you not see that shift from the primary to secondary industry? There will always be some people in the primary industries (I don't think complete automation is really viable), but the bulk of the demand for workers has indeed shifted up the pipe.

Do you remember the Industrial Revolution? Do you remember greater than 70% unemployment, because machines took jobs? Do you remember it lasting 60 years, before we got back to some 5%-15% level of unemployment, like a normal, civil society?

Do you honestly think we're going to just up and move people to new jobs? We'll face major unemployment for decades in a giant paradigm shift. The demand for jobs will vanish until we invent a new way for people to be useful that cannot be equaled by machines. The ones we already have apparently haven't solved unemployment for us yet.

And... really? You think getting an engineering degree is going to "fail" since other people want those engineering jobs? HA! Well this might just be an anecdote, but it worked pretty well for me. And every other engineer I know.

Good to know no credible research shows an oversupply of the STEM market. There's news that STEM graduates have low unemployment, with half of engineers and computer people not working in STEM jobs, and 75% of STEM graduates overall not working in STEM-related jobs. CIS has found 8 million non-working STEM graduates, and thinks there are 50% more STEM graduates than STEM jobs.

Yeah, you're hearing 2+2=5, but that's not what I'm saying.

You're saying there is infinite demand for engineers. All current research says we have plenty more than we need. You know why I'm not listening? Because I have access to current data that says exactly the opposite of what you're saying, coming out of multiple research sources, and plastered all over the fucking place. In short: you're wrong.

Yes, that's harsh, and unfriendly. But you can take a fucking look and see. My sources linked above are 2013-2014 sources, not 2002 or some stupid shit. It's current. I'm arguing correctly, by credible and recent data. I understand that part of good negotiation is to give people a way to save face, but I'm going to call a lifeline here and say I know more about the job market in this discussion than about how to not make you look stupid for being wrong.

Wow, corporate control over not only the wages of all their workers, but also the primary force of upward social mobility.... yeah, that paints a pleasant picture of the future.

That's what universal college education is: cheap labor, pre-trained workforce, trained on the backs of the individual and the taxpayer, with an oversupplied labor market so wages can be kept low. When your education is no longer adequate, we'll replace you with a new college grad who is up-to-speed, unless you keep yourself up-to-speed using money from your wages we pay you, without costing more than a replacement grad.

Have you not realized that selecting an education career is a risk? It's a big risk: even if it's free, it's years of your life relegated to whatever useless McBurgerJackInTheAss fry runner drive thru job you can get, with the hopeful return of a career. If you pick the wrong career, you will not gain employment by your degree; your upwards mobility

Yeah ... banksters explain some part (certainly not all, but some for certain) of the immigration reform push:

Head of banking group pushes Republicans to back immigration reform

Wells Fargo Official Links Lending to Immigration Reform

Silicon Valley Bank: In Support of Immigration Reform

How Immigration Reform Will Help Fix The Housing Recovery

First of all, on the "poor underpayed H1-B" myth. I live and work in Seattle metro area. My base pay is $150k, and then another $40k on top of that in bonuses.

First off, individual salaries of very highly skilled H-1B visa holders does nothing to undermine the "poor underpaid H-1B" myth. Does the fact there is a black president mean there is absolutely no discrimination left in the US?

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, H-1B Visa holders in the computer industry make on average $13k less per year than a citizen. In addition to that, 85% of H-1B workers work for less than the median wage for their occupation. Looks like you are not the norm.

Just because you are one of the few H-1B workers that almost all US citizens would agree we want to immigrate here does nothing to disprove the fact that H-1B workers depress wages by flooding the market with underpaid workers.

Every time I see these stories, I know what comments there will be, but I'm getting tired of all the whining and bullshit.

The sad thing is when anyone complains about H-1B workers they are almost immediately accused of xenophobia and/or labeled as whining. I hate our H-1B system, but only because of how unfairly it treats H-1B workers. I am a consultant and I work with many of these immigrants. I am appalled at how horrible the system is that they describe. If we had a properly functioning H-1B program, instead of the indentured servitude it usually consists of, I would bet that H-1B workers would make above median wages.

If they weren't just an exploited group (in the vast majority of cases), companies would only bring over the best and the brightest. And this would be wonderful.

Its tragic that Mark et al are being forced to put up with just sort of OK US workers.

You know one step that Mark et al could take that would grease the skids on their immigration reforms?

Pay the geniuses they want to import what they're worth. See The Bottom of the Pay Scale: Wages for H-1B Computer Programmers.

In fact, Mark et al should either pay back salaries to all of the H-1b workers they've ever employed or Mark et al should be thrown in prison for fraudulent abuse of the H-1B guest worker provision.

I've heard that a few times over the years. Americans don't know what war is like because we've never had to suffer it personally. Our soldiers always go somewhere else to fight.

About 13% of Americans are immigrants, many from war-ravaged countrires.

What is "many"? 2/3 of all immigrants to the US come from Mexico, East Asia, & Europe... areas not exactly known for being war-torn atm.
How many of that "many" are US Representatives with the power to vote to go to war? How many of that "many" can be POTUS, thus giving them the power to start a "military operation"? If you can find 4 in Congress, that would mean about 1% of the population has a representative with personal experience. Even if you do, I say 1% still means your point absolutely irrelevant.... unless you want to get into an anti-occupy wall street "we are the 1%" demonstration.

They know exactly what war is. Probably better than you do.

Glad you agree with me.

Not quite. You're making the fundamental mistake of attributing the suffering to war.

Yea, I'm making a fundamental mistake of attributing suffering with war. I'm sorry, what color is the sky on your planet? War brings suffering. That is a not even remotely debatable. Or by "the suffering", do you mean all suffering? If so, then you're mistaken about what I am mistaking.

War comes about from a refusal to settle disagreements amicably. That almost never happens except when what one side is arguing for is considered to be worse than war by the other side.

Well, duh. Why exactly are you responding to my post again? It looked like you were going to disagree with me by citing immigration, but failed, and then paraphrased what I said, and now you're going off on what starts wars which completely misses my point. I'm talking about the decision making process. If you don't understand the consequences of a decision, then your decision making process is flawed. If you experience war first hand by personally seeing the destruction and suffering it brings, you are better informed as to whether or not that suffering is worth getting whatever it is you think you'll get from a war.

I've heard that a few times over the years. Americans don't know what war is like because we've never had to suffer it personally. Our soldiers always go somewhere else to fight.

About 13% of Americans are immigrants, many from war-ravaged countrires. They know exactly what war is. Probably better than you do.

When they're adults, these kids will be able to look back and use this experience to make an informed decision on whether or not to fight in whatever conflict their country gets into. Sweden's next generation of decision makers will be better equipped because of the presence of these kid's experience.

Not quite. You're making the fundamental mistake of attributing the suffering to war. War comes about from a refusal to settle disagreements amicably. That almost never happens except when what one side is arguing for is considered to be worse than war by the other side. The refugees fleeing ISIS aren't at war. But I'll bet every one of them wishes the world would go to war for their sake.

This is really an effort by big multinationals to suppress tech job wages in the US by keeping up the H1B visa racket, and all the associated visa rackets.

http://cis.org/no-stem-shortag...

The annual number of H1B visas issued 85,000.

However, the number of H1B visas working in the USA is closer to 750,000 today.

(it was about 650,000 in 2009.
http://cis.org/estimating-h1b-...)

There are roughly five million STEM jobs including immigrant labor and native born labor.

So about 1/8 of all these jobs are taken by H1B visas.

Meanwhile, there are almost double the number of native born with STEM degrees.

There is not a shortage of workers. There is a shortage of workers willing to work for low wages.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-G...

Again, not America's problem.

A good estimate I saw for H1-B Visas:

Number of H-1B workers in U.S. on Sept. 30, ‘09 651,500

Estimating the Size of the H-1B Population in the U.S.

That's 2009. I wonder how scaled this fits into your thesis. Do we really have 651,000 jobs that cannot be filled by Americans as of 2009?

The O is not a dual-purpose visa. I'm only allowed to work so long as I do so with NO immigration intent.

File an I-140 and an I-485. You can stay here, work, and apply for a green card.

Look me up. My real name's Jim Dovey ...

Nice creds. You shouldn't have any problem finding a good job in the UK, or Canada where you were working. So what's the problem from your POV? If you prefer the US, you already have your O-1 and a way to apply for a green card (issued on a priority basis).

I highly doubt that your anecdotal experience has any more weight than my own.

No it doesn't, which is why I was citing statistical data: http://www.cis.org/articles/20...

I find it very hard to believe that the purpose of the H1-B program is to suppress Americans' wages.

Is that tongue in cheek, or are you that naive?

It *looks* like its purpose is to allow foreign workers to enter the US, contribute to the economy

How do they contribute to the economy since there is no shortage of domestic talent with at least equal ability to the typical H-1B? Please find me one objective statistical piece of data that shows the the alleged shortage of such workers is real, and not just the self-serving statements of CEO's and immigration lawyers.

Considering 50 million American out of work. One wonders that American corporations can't invest in American workforces.

Data shows millions of Americans falling out of the workforce

Still No Evidence of a Labor Shortage

Here you go. And it turns out my numbers were off. It could be more like 650,000.

pp. 13-14 in mine.

That aside, the points are well-made, and well taken. Thanks. It's easy to get mechanical, less easy to keep in mind that a good mechanic does his work just so.

On the foreign worker thing, Wolfram Alpha gives total IT jobs in U.S. at around 4 million - from CIS research scientists to "miscellaneous computer specialists." David North, at Center for Immigration Studies, gives an estimate (2009) in a small report from 2011 of ~650,000 H1B workers in the country. Link, http://www.cis.org/estimating-h1b-population-2-11. The reason for estimates is that apparently no one is keeping a running tally; it's a short report and worth the reading. I found http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2013/04/19/federal-plan-could-double-h1b-visas.html?page=all worthwhile also.

Of the 10,000/day retiring, how many work in IT? The cited article from the summary doesn't say. Without good numbers to work with.... it's another fun and interesting water-cooler conversation.

You write this crap and you get modded "insightful"? Jesus wept! How is money earned here, spent here and taxed here different depending on the nationality of the person doing the earning/spending/taxpaying?

They are not paid the same or taxed equally. See the above links.

What is the basis of this claim? Given the current exchange rate (i.e. the dollar is worthless) I have my doubts about that.

a programmer working in India that does not have an outsourced job makes around about 8k USD per year. So if you could live like a king in your home country living with your family and friends vs living an average life in the US what would you choose? They ship the money back and pack in three to four people in just one apartment here in the states for a reason...it's not to afford a new car they all carpool in.

What are you waffling about? Our company is full of H1B people who are all on the road to citizenship. If you want to discourage them from staying here, then keep up the anti-immigrant xenophobic rhetoric.

Most of us here also know many non h1b programmers that are very good at what they do but instead of coming out of college and starting a job in the field they are stuck in another unrelated field or worse stuck in retail...construction work...flipping burgers. I've heard all the stories. We sell to these kids to get a degree in CS and you'll find a job but instead they hit this wall of must have experience to get hired. When was the last time you saw an entry level position open up at your company? I can't even think of the last time mine had one. The h1b workers I work with are also great people and hard workers. Some are average, some are below, and a few are great just like anyone in the states. The question is why are we hiring them? Just so you can keep your new h1b friends while our sons and daughters can't get a job if their life depended on it...which it does...

Right. Our company used to hire graduates from American colleges. They'd take three days to do something a European graduate could do in a few hours. Fix the education system and become competitive with the rest of the world. That'd be a better approach than lowering the bar for your own people and raising it for others.

Anyone coming from a first world country is not an accurate representation of how the H1B visa system is being used. See the links above. If a European graduate decided to up and move to the states you can bet his or her socioeconomic status is far above a huge majority of US college grads with a mountain of debt over their heads. It's like your taking someone that studied at MIT and comparing him with someone that studied at the local community college. I will admit there is a "problem" with our education system but that's hardly a discuss about h1b visas. My point is someone coming to the states from a 1st world country more than likely went to a better school and had a better background than most in Europe and the states.

Another think I would like to note: Companies no longer hire and train. They hire with experience. If you've ever noticed the contract companies you work with will team people from their company together. 1 teaches and trains the entry level guy that got hired on when the company he's now working for isn't accepting ANY entry level people or training anyone. So fresh new faces come in with zero experience and get trained...also get trained by myself. While we continually push away college grads from the states with the exact same experience...zero.

I haven't seen much if any evidence that immigration is a substantial problem there. We have plenty of low income American kids whose families have been here for 200 years.

Just because you have never studied the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist. 23% of immigrants and their US born children live in poverty, compared to 13.5% of natives and their children. That means immigrants are almost twice as likely to be in poverty.

Source
http://www.cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population

Posting as AC because I'm still in the business and it wasn't so long ago that IBM was up the chain from my paycheck.

If IBM acquires this division, expect all first-world workers to be downsized systematically while forced to train their third-world replacements under threat of not receiving their severance packages.

Indeed. Here it is, right from the horses mouth.

This whole thing about immigration (legal or not) is simply ridiculous.

Like most industrialized nations, the rate of population growth of the US is declining. We would be under replacement rate already were it not for immigration.

The population growth rate is in decline even with the current rate of immigration, which is at historically unprecedented levels (about twice as many as the early 1920's).

Illegals make up a disproportionally large segment of the prison population, but overall, violent crime is way down. (Blacks also have a disproportionally large prison population.)

Thinking that the country cannot sustain the influx, or that these people will somehow reduce our standard of living by requiring more services, or increase the crime rate is simply not supported by the evidence.

Then there's the innovation. Jobs come not from existing businesses, but from starting new businesses, and from new-ish businesses growing large. Immigrants tend to make the most of their opportunities by inventing new things, starting new businesses, and encouraging their children get educated and become successful (source).

Then there's the infrastructure. Illegal immigrants don't contribute to the infrastructure by paying taxes (as much), but at the same time they become a burden on the infrastructure by avoidance. They avoid the hospitals until something becomes an emergency, they don't alert the police to minor situations before they get out of hand, and so on.

Then there's the exploitation. Illegal immigrants have no recourse when their employer abuses them.

It would almost seem, from a completely neutral viewpoint, that just allowing illegals to become citizens would be a win all around.

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is.

Perhaps someone can craft a reasonable sounding "what if" scenario that outlines the sophistry for me? I'm not having any luck identifying any evidence-based reasons.

Hand harvesting of fruit and vegetable crops accounts for 50% of total production costs. So, please spare me this notion that it doesn't really effect what we pay in the grocery store. Some of us eat stuff other than wheat and corn.

http://www.cis.org/FarmMechanization-ImmigrationAlternative

Actually we do spend quite a bit on illegal aliens. Approximately 10 billion per year:

http://cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

They estimate that if we adopted an amnesty program, those costs would increase to 29 billion per year.

They cite their sources and methodology pretty well, unlike other reports that claim upwards of 300 billion per year. Still though, 10 billion per year is a lot of money.

I think the main problem we have is that we grant citizenship to anybody who is born here, regardless of where their parents came from. I've talked to people from other countries who think it is very strange that we do this.

SPLC is a hate group. And yet they don't list themselves as one, I wonder why.

http://www.cis.org/node/54
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/02/local/me-cap2
http://webworks.typepad.com/lakecountyfiscalrangers/2010/06/cost-of-illegal-immigrants-from-a-california-teacher-working-in-a-title-1-school.html
http://sosguy.net/articles/264
http://www.bakersfieldnow.com/news/investigations/122630554.html
http://capoliticalnews.com/2012/03/06/antonovich-la-county-cost-for-illegal-aliens-is-1-6-billion-per-year/

The problem with people like you, is that the moment people cite any facts that impact immigration negatively, they are labeled "hate" by the SLPC. From the SPLC own website ...

Other hate groups on the list target gays or immigrants

I bet you don't even see the problem with that. You're a "hate group" if you mention facts about illegal immigration problems. Self fulfilling much?

Of course you have a valid point that nobody ever breaks the law.

At any given moment it is a pie though

That's pretty short-sighted, isn't it? What about the next one?

For production and wealth, any time that a company goes to use cheap labor at local rates to obtain or build a product that they then sell at first-world prices for orders-of-magnitude profit is exploitation

Because you say so? Doesn't sound like anyone being "exploited" has a gun to their head. They can choose not to participate. But if they are getting "local rates" (in fact in most cases they get much better than that), then why wouldn't they? Besides, as I mentioned, many of the companies that move operations to low-rate labor areas would find it much less profitable if not for the tax considerations, protection, and unfair trade agreements that they buy from their congresscritters.

As for illegal immigration...

Yep, illegal immigrants are the new slave labor. That's what I consider real exploitation, and the fact that the "wink and nudge" comes from the institution that's supposed to exist to protect the rights of people makes it unconscionably criminal.

I don't believe that the Obama Administration wants to happily grant an amnesty to everyone undocumented in the US who have committed no other real crimes.

Then you need to dig a little deeper. This is probably a good place to start.

Either way, ceasing to prosecute deportations on these people and instead focusing on criminals that actually generate real victims is probably a better approach anyway.

Agreed. Too bad that's not happening either.

Maybe if you would educate yourself about what minorities actually think about illegal immigration your racist opinions would change...

Under the current law, the number of visas is:

65,000 in the general pool.
20,000 to those with graduate degrees from U.S. universities.
Unlimited to non-profit and government research laboratories and to universities.

http://www.cis.org/H1bVisaNumbers

And don't forget, the h1b is only one of two dozen work visas that the US offers. Other unlimed visas include: L-1, O-1, and Opt - I think.

Apparently your company has no problem finding qualified people, just finding qualified people willing to settle for what you want to pay them.
This, unfortunately, is where the H-1Bs are currently being used - to artificially depress the wages your company needs to pay for desirable skills by letting them bring in an indentured servant. See also http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back407.html , and go watch the presentation by a law firm on how to disqualify Americans in order to legally hire H-1Bs instead.

(If you'd prefer a less-biased source: "'They don't have the usual rights that U.S. workers have,' says Eileen Appelbaum, a professor of labor economics at Rutgers University. 'You're essentially an indentured servant.'" from http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/jun2003/ca20030610_2638_ca014.htm ; or take a few H1-Bs out for coffee and ask them about how their green card applications were going and what would happen if they switched employers. )

The program is fundamentally operating on lies. It has some safeguards in the law, but clearly they lack sufficient teeth, because average wages aren't really being paid and Americans are really being displaced. A very minimal amount of looking into it should show that there is an actual problem, and it's not just some bitter laid off guy whining.

Apparently your company has no problem finding qualified people, just finding qualified people willing to settle for what you want to pay them.
This, unfortunately, is where the H-1Bs are currently being used - to artificially depress the wages your company needs to pay for desirable skills by letting them bring in an indentured servant. See also http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back407.html , and go watch the presentation by a law firm on how to disqualify Americans in order to legally hire H-1Bs instead.

(If you'd prefer a less-biased source: "'They don't have the usual rights that U.S. workers have,' says Eileen Appelbaum, a professor of labor economics at Rutgers University. 'You're essentially an indentured servant.'" from http://www.businessweek.com/careers/content/jun2003/ca20030610_2638_ca014.htm ; or take a few H1-Bs out for coffee and ask them about how their green card applications were going and what would happen if they switched employers. )

The program is fundamentally operating on lies. It has some safeguards in the law, but clearly they lack sufficient teeth, because average wages aren't really being paid and Americans are really being displaced. A very minimal amount of looking into it should show that there is an actual problem, and it's not just some bitter laid off guy whining.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

Center for Immigration Studies. Please bear with me on the formatting... I can code data structures and object-oriented in C++, but I never did much in HTML... (Note after preview: Looks like Slashdot does the link work for me. Hooray!)

The parts of this that I found notable were:

Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.

If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net cost of $29 billion.

Costs increase dramatically because unskilled immigrants with legal status -- what most illegal aliens would become -- can access government programs, but still tend to make very modest tax payments.

And...

The vast majority of illegals hold jobs. Thus the fiscal deficit they create for the federal government is not the result of an unwillingness to work.