Comment by FooBarBizBazz

> Immigrants come for better opportunity and living conditions, not to be "rich" although the ability to actually do so is welcomed.

The US, and similar countries, are rich by global standards. A "normal", "not rich" middle class lifestyle there is enviable to "normal" people in most of the world. The argument about "better opportunity and living conditions" vs "rich" is about word choice and connotation. When I say "rich" I mean to call into question what Americans think of as "normal", and to consider how their "normal" is supported.

> to stop immigration

When a patient is sick, you don't want to stop the blood transfusions keeping them alive.

> Why would you rather have countries be worse [...] rather than lifting the others up?

The United States isn't actually better in a sustainable way. It operates a Ponzi scheme: Immigrants are lured in, they do the work, and hopefully they even get a little material comfort, but mostly they are working for the benefit of their children. The trap is that their children end up Americanized, which reduces their fertility to below replacement. Within a few generations they are all dead. Hence the need for a constant replacement flow. Without that, the US would be Japan.

It goes without saying that not every culture can operate in this way. An ecosystem made entirely of leeches will crash; there also need to be hosts.

> [t]he vast majority of people have to work for a living so why would immigration change that?

The incumbents at the top of these Ponzi schemes have easy jobs. They certainly don't pick strawberries.

Those easy lives serve one purpose: They are the beacon that draws more workers in.

The top of the pyramid can be supported because it is constantly dying off.

> Immigrants are not "consumed" whatever that means.

Their culture, which gave them life, is destroyed, and replaced with The American Way of Life, so they have no great-grandchildren. In this way, America is a population sink.

> That's what people who are for immigration reform and strong borders want.

So long as the draw of the American Dream is as strong as it is, any disincentives sufficiently powerful to counteract it will need to be inhumane -- think "children in cages". Laws that cannot be enforced humanely are not legitimate.