Comment by bonsai_spool
1 day ago
I think the point is that they are contributing to the US, and were the best option for their employer, and are supporting their communities, etc.
All things that we should be supporting if we are indeed wishing our nation to prosper.
A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, so we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country.
> A plurality of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes
What does a plurality even mean here? This is a binary question, so plurality and majority are the same thing. And I don't think it is factually correct that the majority of Americans do not pay income taxes.
I apologize on the wording, but this is an easy thing for you to Google!
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...
I didn't look hard but that's the first thing I found. Famously, Mitt Romney complained that 47% of Americans don't contribute to federal income tax revenue, which is what I was thinking of.
Side note...I hate this stat because it makes it sound like the rich are paying their share of taxes. The reality is that people who make large w2 income pay a large part of federal taxes, and while they would be considered rich they are not the ultra-rich we see in the news every day.
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> So we’re essentially turning away someone who is building up our country.
They're not being turned away. There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship. It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all.
> They're not being turned away.
They are actually in fact being told to return to their country before completing a process that previously - legally! - could be done in the US. That = being turned away
> There's a requirement to be in the country for 5 years with a green card before citizenship.
That is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Until next week, or whenever the current system is again upended haphazardly.
> It seems to me that they are just upset that they have to follow the rules which aren't hurting them at all.
It seems to me that they were all following the rules. The rules are now being capriciously changed with sly marketing words to confuse everyone.
> which aren't hearting them at all.
They are effectively being ruled by a system that they have no say in. That's incompatible with America's democratic values. Of course it's reasonable that we don't allow non-citizens the vote; the problem as I see it is that if someone has worked here for 25 years for all intents and purposes they are a citizen, the government just doesn't formally recognize the reality of their situation.
I strongly disagree. That person retains the option of returning to their origin country and having a say there.
This is so confusing. What does GC -> citizenship have to do with this? The rules work fine now because they apply for the change of status and keep on working until its accepted and leave if not. This new rule means they have to leave the country they are living and working in for anywhere from 1 month to 2 years, probably losing their job and majorly disrupting their lives for seemingly no reason at all. People who have lived in the US for a decade with a job, mortgage, family and children randomly need to leave to years, and what does that accomplish for anyone? If the govt. wanted to deport them, they could do it at any moment. The govt. can process their change of status paperwork exactly the same whether they're in or out of the country. So what is the point of any of this?
Someone else would have taken that job maybe for a higher salary.
But then they gave up a tax paying job and thus the net effect is zero.
Looking holistically the person leaving the US (or lets say 100 people to make it easier to see the point) means 1 to 30 less startups and so maybe an entire company or more not being started. That is less revenue for US.
What most people from the "they steal our jobs" mentality (not saying that is you, but this a seperate point) don't get is productive people create jobs by being a customer of many businesses.
Then someone lower got a better job and someone out of work ends up in a job.
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Those seem like bold assumptions about % of startups created by green card holders?
I feel like the better argument is that the greencard holder was the best candidate and thus will be more productive in the role. It is just efficient resource allocation. That, even without new companies, will drive profit/expansion/more jobs
More likely there would have been one less job.
There isn't a "lump of labour" that gets distributed in the economy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
Humans tend not to be fungible.
It is questionable if US has the education system or people capital to support all the science based sectors it has IMO.
Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less
"Immigrants doing a very large portion of tech work can't be just because they get paid less"
It is solely about that. Remember, immigrants didn't really play a role in the US tech industry for half of its existence and didn't play a major role until a decade ago. This is despite the fact that US colleges openly and actively discriminate against US citizens for grad school spots for 2 or 3 decades now.
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You do realize every major tech company has offices in EU and in India. You make it hard here they will hire more there
Good. They can go and replace some other country's population.
At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs. So the choice is to let other nations absorb these skilled laborers, or simply hire the best people.
It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.
> At a certain point, there aren't enough Americans for these jobs
Is that really true? I’m sure in some fields where you need rare experts I believe it. For the average engineer who is just another cog in the wheel of big corp, I highly doubt it.
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With AI taking a percentage of jobs there will be enough people to fill those positions and more. Why bring in workers when productivity is taking away positions.
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So we should strive to maximize companies profits over the citizens?
>It's funny how we forget about meritocracy as soon as the median American is threatened.
What meritocracy? This is a myth pushed to justify a kind of "just world" interpretation of our social ills. Nepotism is increasing, social mobility decreasing. To believe in meritocracy in the face of this is to deny reality.
Or it would have moved overseas forever.
I can already on the ground see the effect of the Trump policies. So many tech jobs that would have been in the US are being lost. And companies are learning how to be effective with overseas teams.