[pksebben]

The phrasing was "welcoming to immigrants", not "welcoming to the ever shrinking definition of good immigrants established by a bunch of octogenarian plutocrats".

"Illegal" is a concept - it's not conflating to assume that it's not the bedrock of the way people think.

[Jensson]

> "Illegal" is a concept

Illegal immigrant is pretty well defined, an immigrant that didn't come through the legal means. The people hired by Google are probably not illegal immigrants.

[samatman]

Illegal is a status more than it is a concept. Immigrating illegally is not the central definition of immigration, any more than shoplifting is the central definition of customer.

America is much more welcoming of immigration, by which I mean legal immigration, than Japan or China. This is not in dispute.

It is also, in practice, quite a bit more slack about illegal immigration than either of those countries. Although I hope that changes.

[shiroiushi]

>America is much more welcoming of immigration, by which I mean legal immigration, than Japan or China. This is not in dispute.

It's not? It sounds like you know little about the world outside of America. Japan is stupidly easy to immigrate to: just get a job offer here at a place that sponsors your visa and it's pretty trivial to immigrate. Even better, if you have enough points, you can apply for permanent residence after 1 or 3 years, and the cost is trivial. In America, getting a Green Card is very difficult and costly, and depending on your national origin can be almost impossible. In Japan, there's no limits at all, per year or per country of origin, for work visas or PR. Of course, Japan is somewhat selective about who it wants to immigrate, but America is no different there, which is why there's such a huge debate about illegal immigration (in America it's not that hard; in an island country it's not so easy).