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Amnesty and America’s Bottom Line—D.C. McAllister
As an Investor’s Business Daily editorial said at the beginning of this year, major businesses are calling for immigration reform because it’s good for their bottom lines even though it’s bad for America’s.
Politicians and big business have colluded in the push for amnesty: “Businesses like cheap labor. And politicians like political contributions from business. So they’ve formed an unholy alliance to push the idea that costs for amnesty for illegals would outweigh the benefits. But they don’t.”
According to the Heritage Foundation, illegal immigrant households cost U.S. taxpayers $55 billion per year. Some argue that those costs would go away after amnesty because illegals would become taxpayers. But that doesn’t pan out. The costs would actually go up to nearly $160 billion. And that’s just for illegals already here.
Why would the costs go up? Because “amnesty would provide unlawful households with access to over 80 means-tested welfare programs, ObamaCare, Social Security and Medicare. The fiscal deficit for each household would soar.”
So why do businesses want amnesty even though it will hurt America? The bottom line is cheap labor. They want to increase the flow of low-skilled workers willing to work for minimum wage and “do the job Americans won’t do.”
But why won’t Americans do those jobs? It’s because they get more money from welfare benefits than going out and working.
It is isn’t that there are jobs Americans won’t do. It’s that there are jobs Americans on welfare don’t want to do.
If we open the borders so that businesses can have their cheap labor (and politicians can continue to get their checks from big business), what happens when all those new workers figure out that they can get more money sitting on the couch rather than working minimum wage jobs?
Human nature is what it is. If we already have a bunch of people unwilling to work because government benefits make it easier not to, it’s logical to assume that immigrants will one day do the same. What happens to our deficits then? What happens to the country?
Both big business and its allied politicians need to look past their short-term interests and consider the future implications of what they’re asking for—because it ain’t pretty. If they don’t, one can only assume they care more about the bottom line than the future of the country.
Published in General
By this logic, a convicted criminal’s right to self-determination trumps society’s right to incarcerate him as punishment for his crimes. The right to say who can go where, when they can go there, and under what circumstances they they can go there is a fundamental characteristic of a society. Society tells us to drive on the streets, not through peoples yards. Try to take a flamethrower into a courthouse. Let us know how it works out for you.
I think Mike H. or Yandusha needs to start an open borders thread and lay out their vision(s) on the matter. I would like to see the logic for it, any references to advocating philosophers and their explanations, and most importantly, how to make it work practically.
Sure, if you uncharitably assume there is nothing more to the logic than a couple specific <200 word comments. Your right to self determination ends at my personal property. Violate that and I’m allowed to stop you.
Why aren’t we rounding up suspected/know gang members and putting them in jail or deporting them to a 3rd world country? It would be logically equivalent.
If someone violates your personal property, society has a say in how you respond. If a kid cuts across your yard going home from school, you can’t just shoot him. And your right to shelter anyone you please on your property is not unlimited, either. Hide a fugitive from the law and the cops will be all over you like ants on spilled maple sugar.
Michael Huemer is probably the best philosopher. Then there’s just about any economist at George Mason University. Bryan Caplan is my personal favorite. Then there’s Ricochet member Nathan Smith, son of Merina Smith and sister of Rachel Lu (I think), who argues from a Conservative perspective. He’s a major blogger at openborders.info which is a site that takes the critisisms seriously and provides counterarguments.
Here’s me taking on Mark Krikorian. He joined in! Which was awesome.
I agree, but the appropriate response stems from proper morality, not whatever society says is proper.
We do deport some foreign gang members. We also jail some of them. We’d have to do it less often if we took the time to identify them before we let them in the country. Must America make itself a dumping ground for the worlds violent criminals?
The America of today is not the America of Ellis Island. It was easier to hire people or start a business back then. Today, we have a weak jobs market and a regulatory regime designed to destroy small businesses.
Mariel boatlift, anyone?
No, we don’t have to let in violent criminals, that would be sufficient to overcome the presumption of free migration.
Wanna read something that will boil your blood ?
http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/03/big-chicken-in-mississippi-politics/
Here’s Haley Barbour, spouting K Street wisdom:
Working at a slaughterhouse is “nasty, dirty work where every day the [workers] come home covered in blood and guts, veins and feet and feathers,” Barbour said at an immigration-boosting event held by the Bipartisan Policy Center, an D.C-based business advocacy group.
Not even convicts in the state’s work-release program will do the job, Barbour added. “The inmates, they won’t stay two days, they’d rather be in a penitentiary than work in a chicken plant,” he said.
The conditions are so terrible that Americans won’t work in the slaughterhouses, and the companies have to hire illegals, Barbour suggested.
“You go into a chicken-processing plant anywhere in Mississippi, and if you can find somebody on the floor who speaks English, I’ll give you $100,” he said, before making a pitch for a new immigration reform that would allow companies to hire more foreign workers in place of Americans.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/03/big-chicken-in-mississippi-politics/#ixzz30fOnlnyW
per year. sorry, thought I put that in. fixed it.
…and how do we know who is and who isn’t a violent criminal? And why draw the line at “violent?” Should we welcome petty thieves and vandalizers? How about substance abusers and deadbeats? What standard do you suggest and how would it be implemented? What is the “proper morality?”
There are no big donors who care about 92. Million long term unemployed American citizens. The only voice they had was the Tea Party. The single biggest fear of the donor class is organizing their voices.
It’s that the presumption is to allow people to move where they want. Why don’t we lock up thieves and vandalizers their whole lives? Aren’t we putting ourselves at undue risk by letting them roam around the countryside? A person must pose an highly curtain threat before someone is justified in stopping them. The vast majority of people in the modern world do not meet that criteria.
In other words, you are proposing an honor system. There would be no system to screen out violent criminals. You would like us to welcome everyone and deal with problems as they arise. Anything more prohibitive would be unjust.
Mike, I’m sorry but you’re just not selling this.
Mike H,
I want to make sure I understand your position. Is it that you think that there should be no borders? That nations are constructs that should not exist? I can’t quite follow where you’re leading. You seem to be saying that citizenship means nothing. Is that the case?
Borders are fine for delineating jurisdiction. I just think it’s wrong to keep people out of your borders for the sake of protectionism/xenophobia. The laws here will still apply to them, but a law saying they can’t come here in the first place is immoral.
Citizenship is also fine when it furthers freedom/solves disputes, but just as things can be unconstitutional, they can be uneconomic or violate human rights. These are immoral types of laws. This covers Obamacare and all types of forced charity. But this also covers denying people from taking a job from a willing employer because they were born in the wrong country and don’t have the right connections. Immigrants don’t need to be given citizenship, or welfare, nor their children, in theory. They just need to be given the opportunity to live here if they choose.
And you think that there is no reason to control your borders other than protectionism/xenophobia?
I’m glad you’ve taken it upon yourself to declare that wanting to control the border is immoral. I think that our definitions of immoral will differ on this point. I’ll take mine, thank you.
Statelessness.
Mike,
You haven’t explained why it is ‘immoral’ to regulate national borders, nor have you explained the source of people’s ‘human right’ to go wherever one pleases. You simply assert these things. Until you can explain the basis of these claims, no reasoning person can take your theory seriously.
The only way to understand Mike’s philosophy is to listen to John Lennon’s Imagine a few times. And start chanting “property is theft.”
Really? A series of terse comments haven’t convinced you to radically change your opinion on immigration? Shocking. :)
I’ve already linked to this once, but this fleshes out the whole rational better than I can in bits and pieces.
This always perplexes me. That a philosophy based solely on protecting the property rights of individuals can be construed to mean property is invalid. Property is the fundamental human right that everything else stems from.
If you, as a proponent, are unable to answer a few simple questions, why should I waste time on this bizarre paper:
My strategy is to argue, first, that immigration restriction is at least a prima facie violation of the rights of potential immigrants. This imposes a burden on advocates of restriction to cite some special conditions that either neutralize or outweigh the relevant prima facie right.
So when I looked in: “2. Immigration Restriction as a Prima Facie Rights Violation,” the author fails to even make an argument supporting his proposition. He simply restates it. Or did I miss something?
Property without a prohibition on trespassing is not property, illegal aliens are to real property what shoplifters are to chattel property.
That was a peer-reviewed journal? That just goes to show there is something broken in the peer-review process. Maybe instead of review by peers, we should have it reviewed by someone sensible and trained in logic.
AAHHH!!
Just to clarify, that’s a quote from the paper Mike H. linked to. It’s not mine.
No, I know that. I traced it back to where it was published in Social Theory and Practice. Scary stuff.
The real question is whether Mike H. is the same as Michael Huemer. Profile says Columbus, OH. Paper on Colorado.edu.
Editing post to add: The reason that question matters is because it would be easier to engage in a critical discussion of the paper with the author than a mere fan of the author.