[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.