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Immigrants Crucial To Innovation
gollum123 sends this excerpt from the NY Times:
"Arguing against immigration policies that force foreign-born innovators to leave the United States, a new study (PDF) to be released on Tuesday shows that immigrants played a role in more than three out of four patents at the nation's top research universities. Conducted by the Partnership for a New American Economy, a nonprofit group co-founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, the study notes that nearly all the patents were in science, technology, engineering and math, the so-called STEM fields that are a crucial driver of job growth. ... The Partnership for a New American Economy released a paper in May saying that other nations were aggressively courting highly skilled citizens who had settled in the United States, urging them to return to their home countries. The partnership supports legislation that would make it easier for foreign-born STEM graduates and entrepreneurs to stay in the United States. ... The study notes that nine out of 10 patents at the University of Illinois system in 2011 had at least one foreign-born inventor. Of those, 64 percent had a foreign inventor who was not yet a professor but rather a student, researcher or postdoctoral fellow, a group more likely to face immigration problems."
I don't have any problems with people going through to correct immigration process to come to the "land of opportunity".
If somebody from another country want to immigrate to the US to better their education or persue better opportunities, the i fully support you as long as you go through the correct process of obtaining a visa and or citizenship.
My beef is with the illegal immigrants that sneak into the country, work under the table and not pay their fair share of taxes, and then get government assistance and benefits at the tax payers expense.
If you want to come to the US, then GREAT! i think that's wonderful!..... Just do it legally and pay your taxes like everybody else.
Lost in the demagogic hyper-bloviating is the fact that no one is really against legal immigration.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
As much grumbling as there is in the tech sector over the HB1 folks (legal status), the average Joe out on the streets is far more resentful of the uneducated migrant workers picking strawberries than they are the post docs with PhDs filling up the universities. The former ones are lowering the wages at the bottom end of the scale for everyone by providing cheap, illegal labor. The smart, educated ones are a minority - and probably speak English pretty well, too.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
when number of patents is used as a measure of innovation. It's only a measure of who has the most lawyers.
I think the majority of US citizens are very welcoming of legal immigrants that come here and (hopefully) want to become American citizens...and meld into our culture.
We're especially welcoming of legal, documented immigrants that have education and skills.
I think for the most part, the main thing we care about for our immigrants...is to just sign the fucking guest book on they way in....you know?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It takes 5 years or more for people from certain countries (India/China) to get a greencard after they obtain advanced degrees in the US.
Politicians don't care or talk about this, because these people don't give them enough votes. That's the problem.
shhhhh, that ruins the entire argument! I mean if the media was talking about immigration honestly, instead of lumping people who come here legally and those who break the law and come here illegally is pure pandering, I am surprised in this day and age it even works any more.
no one wants to end immigration to america, our country was built on that concept, We simply want it done correctly. like our ancestors did
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
no one wants to end immigration to america, our country was built on that concept, We simply want it done correctly. like our ancestors did
Kill everyone who's already living here, throw the survivors in reservations, and strip-mine all the resources? 0_o
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I hate hater haters.
I love hater haters because i hate haters.
You seem to be unaware that the populations of both the EU and the USA are increasing solely because of immigration. Birthrates in the USA and EU are already below replacement rates.
Theoretically, China is also already into permanent population decline, but it's unclear to what extent the One Child Per Family laws are ignored/bypassed....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Thousands of dollars and years of your life spent waiting for your number to be called in an INS office.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
>>>Kill everyone who's already living here
90% of the Indians were killed-off by a bacteria and viruses. The Europeans experienced the Plagues of the 400s and 700s and also the Black Death in the 1400s. The native americans did not have exposure to any of these diseases, until the 1600s and 1700s, and it wiped most of them out.
>>>throw the survivors in reservations
The Supreme Court TRIED to stop that practice by issuing decisions that the Indians did not need to move, but the slave-owning Democrats who were in charge (like Andrew Jackson) decided the Supreme Court can shutup, and moves the Indians anyway.
>>>strip-mine all the resources?
Running-out of resources sounds like a good reason to limit population growth to me (by closing the borders & only allowing legal immigrants). Else come the 2030s we won't be able to feed ourselves or heat our homes, due to scarcity.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Your information is correct, up until the end.
Unless you are joking, we force imported people from Africa, we took Irish off the boat to fight in the Civil War for legal status, we have allowed and exploited illegal immigrants for many years (See 1980s/1990s Asian importing of illegals).
Do I wish everyone was legal? Yes. I think they can and are exploited, used as slaves, held for ransom, and paid small and illegal wages because of their status.
To top that all off, if you increase your immigration without control, you will soon find yourself in a situation where food is not highly available, resources are strained, and governments can collapse. There are cases in history where this has happened.
So... if you want to tie it up into a neat little package of "racism" or "prejudice" you are dead wrong and highly uneducated about the issue.
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.
I have never once seen an ounce of hostility toward legal immigrants in my life.
I have, many times. And i would be surprised if you actually haven't. A lot of it takes the form of racism. I've heard people told "go back to ________". There are numerous immigrant small business owners who suffer abuse solely because they are (or are perceived to be) not native americans. The stereotype is Korean store owners in non Korean communities, who are purportedly prime targets, especially when things start to go bad.
As opposed to all of those patents in English lit and women's studies, I suppose...
Rob
Replace the CEOs with H1bs and you'll get better results.
Ahh yes, the partisan attacks. Andrew Jackson may have been a democrat, but the party has radically shifted over the ensuing centuries. Bear in mind that Lincoln was a republican.
With that aside...I am a 2nd generation American, my grandparents were from Mexico (legally) and nobody hates illegals more than they do. I'm a pretty hard-core liberal, but when it comes to immigration policy I lean towards pragmatism. I'm a bit tired of the hypocrisy that the rest of the world shows the U.S. The Mexican-Guatemalan border is heavily guarded, and yet Mexico complains about us putting up a (ineffective) wall.
I suppose the crux of my post is, immigration is a helluva lot more complicated than the Fox News / MSNBC talking points would have us believe.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Legal: Someone shows up at the border (perhaps after waiting "in line" to emigrate and/or get their paperwork) and meets with an immigration official. They show their ID, get a medical screening for contagious disease, etc ... You know, the sort of stuff that happened at Ellis Island and other locations for many decades.
Wow.. its clear to me that you've never actually gone through the legal immigration process. It is much worse than you paint it out to be. At best, you'll get treating with disrespect, dismisive attitude, rudeness, made to wait entire days in line, etc.. I speak from experience as a US citizen who had to get a visa for his wife.
At worse, well.. there's no end to how bad they can and do treat people when all they are wanting to do is go on with their life.
Even then, legal immigrants or legal visitors to the US get treated like Al Qaeda every by unprofessional TSA types, and rude immigration officials at the border.
"The Supreme Court TRIED to stop that practice by issuing decisions that the Indians did not need to move, but the slave-owning Democrats who were in charge (like Andrew Jackson) decided the Supreme Court can shutup, and moves the Indians anyway."
And this is an example of why the executive branch cannot and should not decide WHAT laws to to enforce a la cart. Imagine if Eisenhower decided he didn't like Brown v Board of Education (and he didn't) and wouldn't enforce it. These are dangers waters to wade...
It's true that the US policy wasn't to intentionally wipe out all the American Indians (although they certainly had no qualms about doing so), just to take all their stuff and force them further west until they had nothing to live on. This was different from the policy of, say, Christopher Columbus, who just wiped out all the Indians living in Hispaniola, or the French who generally set up trading posts along the rivers and left the Indian societies intact (which was a major reason the Indians tended to side with the French during the 6 Years War).
I am officially gone from
"The Mexicans are doing the jobs we don't want to do. The Asians are doing the jobs we don't know how to do. Where does that leave us?" - Colbert
Ok, my subject is hyperbole. But anyone who has ever tried to legally immigrate or help a foreign friend try to move to the US knows that it simply isn't possible for the vast majority of people.
I will be brief and concise.
There is no "line." Illegals cannot get in the back of the "line" because the "line" does not exist.
The Green Card lottery is biased against the best countries. Ok, that's not exactly how it works in theory, but that's kind of what happens. Example: In 2012, Japan was awarded 435 visas and Nigera 6,204.
You can't come to the US just because you want to. You can't come regardless of whether or not you have the means to support yourself. You can't come regardless of your education level or English-speaking ability. You can't even come if one of your family members is already here--you must be the direct blood relative of a US citizen, a non-citizen permanent resident sibling is, for instance, not good enough (and becoming a citizen takes decades).
Almost the only way to immigrate (outside of political asylum) is through the arduous and exploitative higher education route. We, the American people, will spend hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to educate foreign students at the best universities in the world. Upon graduation from a prestigious American school with American knowledge, they either must get a job immediately (not easy in these economic times) or get out. Often times, they do get out, and they start those companies which are now out-competing us on the world stage. For instance, I challenge you to find a foreign technology company whose CEO doesn't have a Ph.D. from a California university. Now, assuming that the student is really, really dedicated to staying in the US, there are still substantial roadblocks to them staying here. Firstly, the paperwork for hiring a foreigner is insane. It's insane enough that really the only places that foreign-born U.S. graduates can work are universities, oil companies, or huge technology companies. Any smaller companies can't afford to figure out the legal mess required to figure out the visas, nor can they accept the risk that they'll hire a foreigner and their visa will be denied. The other issue is that if the foreigner doesn't keep their job, they will be deported. They have limited job prospects in the first place due to the visa and legal regulations, and the employers know it. The employers almost universally abuse these people because they know that their only chance to get a green card is to stay employed, the green card process is restarted if they change jobs, and they know that the foreigner wants a green card. So they can overwork and underpay them because they know the foreigner won't quit until they get their green card.
I have tried to figure out legal avenues for some friends in Japan. They have college degrees, speak near-perfect English, and have a passion for America and its culture. Nevertheless, we could not find a route for them to work in the US, so they remain in Japan.
Well most likely said immigrant was required to do the WORK for the patent, whether or not he was crucial to the viability of it. That's a double edged sword, without them it wouldn't have happened (or as many wouldn't have happened), but by using them we are training them to be innovators. They very shortly WILL be the key innovators, whether or not thye are now.
Unemployed.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Well no one ever said we were not MILITANT religious fundamentalists.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.