Comment by refurb
9 hours ago
That logic doesn't hold up.
Legal immigration - as is today - is about 1% of the US population. That's pretty standard, and would result in an slowly increasing population.
But regardless, saying "we need immigrants" then jumping to "illegal or not" is not a logical argument. We absolutely can have a system that prevent illegal immigration, while carefully screening legal immigrants. Heck, every country in the world does this except the US.
Can, if we had a functioning Congress that actually passed material laws. We’ve been trying to pass immigration reform for the last couple of decades.
Changing laws is irrelevant if the executive chooses to ignore them.
It would be better to actually enforce the immigration laws we have right now, and see where we land. Then make changes from there.
And we would have had bipartisan steps toward it before the last presidential election, if Trump hadn't told Republicans to tank it at the last minute because it hurt his biggest talking point for reelection.
The US values individual freedom, has porous borders, a diverse population, and a large land mass. Citizens would have to put up with some pretty draconian living conditions to ensure zero illegal migration.
Even Reagan granted mass amnesty in the face of such costs.
We can disagree on where the threshold of unacceptable intrusion into our lives should be. But significant change probably requires replacing the Fourth Amendment. Or--as is happening now--pretending the 4A doesn't exist and hope whoever is in power next won't prosecute them.
> Citizens would have to put up with some pretty draconian living conditions to ensure zero illegal migration.
I don’t agree. It’s a matter of incentives. If you know entering the US illegally means you stand a high chance of being deported, have almost no ability to be employed and no access to any social services, the problem mostly solves itself.
Lots of other countries ask why the US has problems other countries have already solved and immigration is a great example of it. It’s a solved problem, our leaders intentionally don’t want it fixed.
> Even Reagan granted mass amnesty in the face of such costs.
The amnesty was an agreement that substantial legislation would be passed later than would stop illegal immigration. That’s why Reagan agreed to it. But the changes never happened.
> But significant change probably requires replacing the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment can stay as is. Just stop people from staying illegally in the country and the 4th amendment becomes a non-issue.