[talmand]

I'm sorry, I simply cannot fully agree with your statement. I also see you are ignoring a great deal of my statement. It is true up to a certain point that what you say is true, as I also said. But if you open the border wide to let anybody in for any reason the near utopia you are describing is just not possible. When someone crosses the border and finds a job to be the productive citizen you describe, all's well. What about when multiples start crossing and there are no jobs for them to have? Let's say your wonderful catering company has too many workers now and not enough new tech companies to sustain hiring yet more people streaming across your open border. Social services will start to fail as the demand increases but the tax revenue doesn't increase with the demand to support it. There are many municipalities out there that are struggling to come up with the money to support the influx of immigrants that were placed, not moved on their own, by means outside their control. I'm not even talking about obvious things like welfare. I'm talking having to suddenly build schools and hire teachers that weren't in the budget to support all these new kids that are suddenly showing up.

Question, would slicing coconuts on the side of the road in Haiti provide the equivalent in pay as taking a low paying catering job in the US considering and comparing elements such as cost-of-living and whatnot? There are many people living in ways we would consider abject poverty but seem to be much happier with their situation than many of the supposed better off immigrants. It's sometimes about perspective too.

I would also say the current economic status of many countries around the world suggest that "everyone way fucking richer in one fell swoop" is not happening regardless of their immigration policies. Everyone is definitely not getting richer in the US despite the years of people pouring across, what is essentially, our open border.

But hey, I'm not an economist, so what do I know?