[weiming]

As a legal immigrant (who also has many friends, along with their families, patiently waiting for green cards, sometimes for years... but that's another topic -- we're probably overdue on an immigration reform in many aspects), I don't understand the motivation for defending illegal immigration. Can someone ELI5?

[tptacek]

The border wall is a paralytic argument that isn't intended to provoke a rational discussion about the real issues involved in undocumented immigration. Most undocumented immigrants don't arrive by crossing the border on foot; the "wall" is really a symbolic "fuck you" to Latino immigrants. I expect a major problem Palmer Luckey will have trying to sell his very expensive Nest Rio Grande Edition Camera will be that to accomplish the true purpose of the wall, the administration will actually have to build a wall.

The real issues underlying undocumented immigration include:

* The fact that the American economy depends on undocumented labor, and so we now have an economy driven in part by a de jure under-class in sort of the same way that Dubai and Saudi Arabia are driven by foreign workers with no rights whose passports are held by their employers.

* The fact that the US Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship, and so a huge percentage of undocumented families in the US have American citizen children --- who are themselves people who have, like most Americans, never known any other country, and so we now have an immigration policy whose effect is to pointlessly break up families.

* The fact that a pretty significant portion of immigrants actually interdicted at the border are in fact refugees from violence to whom we have stated obligations.

* The fact that our system treats interdicted immigrants (documented or otherwise) terribly, including prolonged imprisonment and pro-forma hearings without legal counsel.

It's pretty clear from how I wrote this where I stand on the issues. There are reasonable conservative reframings for these points. Paired together, those competing framings would constitute a rational argument about immigration. The wall, on the other hand, is mostly just a pointless symbol of nationalist enmity.

Finally, when comparing your lot with that of (say) undocumented Hondurans, bear in mind that by law your experiences aren't the same: we have different quotas and, in some respects, different systems for people of different nationalities.

[lotsofpulp]

Your first point is actually very beneficial to the rich and owners of capital. Letting illegal immigrants stay in the country puts downward pressure on wages for work at the lower end of the income scale so business owners save a ton of money and the workers can't organize because they're illegal.

If Americans actually cared about the plight of illegal immigrants, they wouldn't be against efforts at trying to remove them, they would be for efforts to streamline immigration so that it's consistent, less costly, and lets disruptive to the immigrants' lives. At the same time, the US would also have to be hard on illegal immigration to prevent illegal immigrants from undercutting wages for those here legally. As long as there is a divide in the quality of life between everything south of the US border, there will always be incentive to illegally immigrate. The proper solution is to keep sending them back, make it harder to get in, and HELP the poorer countries increase their quality of life so they aren't incentivized to risk their lives for a future.

But I wouldn't bet on it, too many people like cheap labor, and too many people get emotional about kicking out illegal immigrants.

[Animats]

too many people like cheap labor

Yes. If we really wanted to keep illegal immigrants from taking jobs from Americans, the US government could require a higher minimum wage for companies that don't use E-Verify. Then it would be cheaper to hire American.

[tptacek]

None of this is simple. If we coerce wages upwards for the jobs undocumented immigrants do, things will become more expensive; in fact, it's likely that low-income people will bear most of the brunt, because they have the least amount of flexibility in terms of where they purchase and how they finance their purchases. There's also the obvious fact that a dollar is marginally more valuable to a low-earner than to a high-earner.

People forget that there are two sides of the labor/wage coin; there's how much you make, and there's how much things cost. What we want at the end of the day is maximal purchasing power, not maximal nominal wages!

That's before we start talking about trade and the extent to which undocumented labor enables tens of billions of dollars of exports.

All I'm saying is: it's not simple. The deeper you dig into it, the sillier the wall is. But that's the point: nobody in power wants to end undocumented immigration; rather, they want to placate the people who are upset by it.

[piketty_fan]

The parent comment is wrong for the reasons you're pointing out, but both of you are missing two things:

Firstly that in a country where immigration laws are or will soon be mostly dictated by corporate lobbyists, any immigration restrictions will also be used to manipulate labor costs in favor of capital (see for example how tech companies use the H1B program). Secondly that historically in periods in which the US lacked a de-jure subaltern class of underpaid laborers, it created de-facto subaltern classes it could exploit for underpaid labor, because it's way easier to drum up racism or gut worker protections than to get rid of the demand for that labor. Any solution to fixing labor prices that just restricts workers' movements instead of placing restrictions on capital does nothing to address either of those issues. The sane way forward should not be immigration restriction, but restrictions on capital flight combined with the establishment of international labor standards, strengthening the foundations of the wage floor in a way that helps workers in both countries instead of destroying peoples' lives just for being rational actors in a broken system.

[lotsofpulp]

I agree with tptacek, I was just expounding on one of his views. International labor standards and controlling capital flight are pie in the sky in the current environment in my opinion, but until then a streamlined immigration process as well as removing illegal immigrants and going after businesses that hire them will have to do.

Also, in response to your other reply, I don't see how removing illegal immigrants and dissuading them from coming here is "culling the poor". I illustrated how allowing illegal immigrants to pervade the US actually harms those at the bottom of the income scale, including those immigrants. We should be working to help poorer countries so that they don't need to resort to illegal immigration, but that doesn't mean we should ignore our immigration laws. Either officially endorse open borders for everyone and equalize society, or enforce and/or fix the laws we have now, but the gray area where we look the other way on the illegals that make it through the hoops alive only helps the rich.

Hence my comment that people that endorse letting illegal immigrants stay are being emotional (e.g. father having to leave his kids, kids going back to country they didn't go up in, etc), because in the larger picture, it's just reinforcing the incentives that are causing them to be exploited.

[piketty_fan]

I disagree about the pie-in-the-sky-ness but that's a fair thing to disagree about and I don't see myself being able to convince you otherwise on a messageboard. what I don't see as fair is pretending that there is such a thing as forcefully removing large amounts of impoverished people (who ostensibly do not have better options) from the country as being possible in a way that doesn't result in large amounts of deaths (either from our police state or from the conditions that caused them to emigrate in the first place, conditions that have, incidentally, been primarily caused by american empire). I also don't think that, given the nature of our law enforcement, it won't be the case that the additional enforcement of these laws isn't just going to be used to disrupt labor organizing or political action that tries to decrease the amount of power held by capital. I agree that pretending there's a gray area only helps the rich but I disagree that enforcing laws that are fundamentally broken and that primarily exist to serve capital is a viable solution either.

I have no problem with reformist solutions, but there's no worker-friendly way to arbitrarily deport workers that's an intermediate to a future that's good for anyone but the rich

[tptacek]

OK we all see that we're off on a tangent that we will never resolve and that could run for weeks, right?

I just wanted to make the point that there were straightforward arguments about undocumented immigration and that none of them really intersect with the wall. :)

[lotsofpulp]

I concur with your concerns, but I think it's worth shaking up the situation we are in now. Technology has made capital many times more powerful than before, so it's a tough fight to be had. My hope would be that removing the cheap (illegal) labor from the US will disrupt the organizations relying on the cheap labor and result in increased wages, and/or moving some of production from the US to poorer countries, which would in the end help them without having to risk life and limb to come to the US.

[tptacek]

I mean, yes, there is also a rational debate to be had between the mainstream liberal position and the far left, too. My point is just that you didn't need to evoke a border wall to make those arguments.

The "ELI5" answer to the border wall debate is "it's a policy meant to paralyze discussion while placating anti-immigration activists; it doesn't have a real public policy purpose".

[piketty_fan]

sure, the wall is racist grandstanding, no argument from me there. I'm just point out that the other guy, who's condescendingly dismissing anyone to his left including mainstream economists as being driven solely by feelings, is maybe not 100% right that we should start culling the poor

[AnimalMuppet]

Could you clarify what "stated obligations" we have to refugees from violence who show up at our border?

[pvg]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta...

[AnimalMuppet]

If I read that correctly, that gives them the right to apply for asylum. It doesn't obligate us to grant it.

[pvg]

You asked what the stated obligations of the US towards refugees are, I told you. I don't really want to litigate the details of the issues with you given that you've just become aware the most basic aspects - that's a straight path to a pointless messegeboard poopfight. There's a lot of excellent material you can find online.

[nubianwarrior]

I typically refrain from discussing this on HN, I am already a unicorn in a sea of anglos (ethnic Tejano - mix of marrano and native peoples) but you need to understand at a minimum that these people are not crossing a border - the border crossed them. The Treaty of Guadalupe only allowed a pathway to citizenship on paper; in practice the complete erradication of the Hispanics/Tejanos/Natives from north of the border. Things like the bracero program in the early 20th century created this migrant cycle. This isn't about defending illegal immigration - it's about the villains pretending to be the victims. I am all for "protecting" the border - you don't do that making everyone from the border, and those that cross it for work/family/quality of life, a criminal.

Don't be a vendido, don't forget about the struggles previous generations went through just for you to be able here to comment on the internet.

[oh_sigh]

> you need to understand at a minimum that these people are not crossing a border - the border crossed them.

What percentage of illegal border crossers do you think are native peoples who lived in that region historically and 'had the border cross them', versus people from southern Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, etc who are using it merely as a migration route and have no connection to the land?

[rhizome]

I don't understand the motivation for defending illegal immigration. Can someone ELI5?

Sure, I'll bite: it's a Class B misdemeanor pursued beyond reason. What is the motivation for kidnapping children from their parents and putting them all in concentration camps for the equivalent of fishing without a license?

[oh_sigh]

It would be better to ask 'You illegally cross the border into another country - should your children be taken away from you?'. There is no equivalence among misdemeanors. Illegal entry can lead to deportation - fishing without a license cannot.

[bluthru]

The reasoning is that we don't know if the children are being kidnapped or not (this was happening during the Obama years), but I don't know enough to know if it's being handled well.

[rhizome]

we don't know if the children are being kidnapped

It's a simple calculus: you get caught for fishing without a license, should your children be taken away from you?

[bluthru]

I find human trafficking to be a greater offense than fishing without a license, and that doesn't work as an analogy. Do you really want law enforcement looking the other way on this issue?

If you're smuggling children across the border should the children be in the same cell as the trafficker? Of course not. I'm all for making this process as fast as possible, though.

[ohyes]

There are good people and bad people.

Sometimes bad people do bad things. Like they bring bad stuff across the border, or bring people across the border and do bad things to those people. We want to punish the bad people for doing bad things that we don't like.

There are also good people. Good people don't do bad things, they do good things. They do farming and build things, and make things better for other people. They work very hard at these good things. They can get paid for the good things they do, and that's good for them too.

The good people outnumber the bad people by a lot. That's what's good about humanity.

Sometimes the good people are in the same place as the bad people and want to get away. Other times the good people are in a place where they can't do the good things that they want to do.

It would take a long time to move if they didn't do something a little bad in order to get the place where they need to be to do good things. In a lot of cases it wouldn't even be possible to move. So they do the thing that is a little bad, but when we find out we punish them like they are very bad people doing very bad things. We take away their kids, take their things, put them in very bad jails, and then send them back to where they were.

They are afraid of being caught. This makes it easy for bad people to hurt them. Bad people can take their money, or do bad stuff to them by threatening to tell on them. They also can't go to anyone for help if they get hurt or sick because of the bad thing they did. This means that these people suffer a lot more than we do. (Suffering is when you hurt for a long time). Being afraid also makes them not get as much when they do good things for other people.

Some people think that because they did a bad thing, they should be punished more and that we aren't mean enough to them for the bad thing they did. Other people think that the bad thing wasn't bad at all, and that it was good, and that we are being too mean.

There are also people who think that the good people are bad people and that we should build a big huge wall, and that a big huge wall will keep everyone out except for people who we let in specifically. Some people think that a big huge wall would not be helpful and too hard to build.

[Mononokay]

Speaking as someone who's changed their mind fairly recently on whether illegal immigration was logical or not (past six months, to "actually, I don't see what's wrong with it"), I'd say the biggest reason is just because of how many things are really, really innefficient under the current system.

You hear stories about kids raised in the US by undocumented parents since shortly after birth, just to get deported to a (more or less) third world country that they have no history in. That's a bit insane, no? And it's not like it's being fairly enforced across the board, either. Try to find any persecution against it that isn't against someone in an at-risk community of low income. It's super unlikely that it's just them doing this.

And the idea that the government can/should keep peaceful people out feels a bit...off, to me. Without serious reform, at least.

As it stands, a lot of the thought processes on the "CLOSE UP THE BORDERS" sort of sentiment are a bit backward. For example, why would we want to get rid of unskilled workers who work for very little? It'd make more sense to get rid of the foreign skilled workers, since they're more than likely taking high-paying jobs. (For the record, I don't like either of those outcomes.)

At the moment, another portion of why I think illegal immigration is fairly sane is just because legal immigration to the US (and many other places, it's not alone in it) is stuck in the Stone Age. It's 2018, there's no excuse for how innefficient it is at this point - especially for low-income people.

[weiming]

> For example, why would we want to get rid of unskilled workers who work for very little?

When I read this argument, it reminds me somewhat of defending slavery.

[drewrv]

I think there's a disagreement in the US about the severity of crossing the border illegally. Some people consider it a minor offense like jaywalking or driving 5mph over the speed limit, while others believe it's more akin to theft or murder.

[plandis]

There is an opportunity cost. If you spend more money on border security then you can’t spend that money on something else.

[bluthru]

It can be argued that not being proactive about illegal immigration is also expensive: https://cis.org/Can-Border-Wall-Pay-Itself

[strangeloops85]

The CIS is a dubious source, at best, on immigration matters. If not an outright hate group: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...

[bluthru]

>The CIS is a dubious source, at best, on immigration matters.

Oh they're certainly biased. That's why I said "it can be argued".

>If not an outright hate group

SPLC plays way too fast and loose to be taken seriously anymore: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/southern-poverty-law-cen...

[aurailious]

Sealion?

[shawnz]

Nobody is defending illegal immigration, not even liberals. What is being opposed here is the masking of racist ideals under the guise of preventing illegal immigration.

Illegal crossings at the border are currently one of the most controversial topics in American politics and yet the actual impact of the issue on American citizens is much less. This clearly shows how the real motivations behind the border wall are not as claimed by its proponents.

[lotsofpulp]

According to various articles and protests I've read about, there are quite a few people not happy that illegal immigrants are being deported. Most recent example I can think of is the pizza delivery guy in New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/nyregion/deportation-new-...

[shawnz]

Supporting humane treatment for people who have already illegally immigrated is a bit different than supporting illegal immigration.

[lainga]

As far as I understand it, the principle is that "nobody is illegal" and that those people have a fundamental right to immigrate to the US (or anywhere else) without barriers. Thus the chant "no borders, no nations, stop deportation".

It might be related to Marx's idea of class solidarity over "bourgeois nationalism", but I haven't thought about it enough to say.

EDIT: could also come (blind stab in the dark) from Maoism-Third Worldism.