U.S. Foreign-born Population hits record 41.3 million

Indeed. Although some here wouldn't consider me a "real American" by Palinesque definition we've traced our family back to 1690's in the then colonies.

Mr.Sinnik, I refer to white people as 'white people'. Unlike you who apparently thinks 'white people' and 'Americans' are synonymous (see your above post). Good luck with that in the coming years.

 

Looking at the world and judging people through the prism of clothing fashion? Oh my. Sounds a little..........gay.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. Nat the Sartorial Selector

 

Are you quitting? Did I win the internet?

If you're an American you're an American, period. I served in the Army with all colors and we would have died for each other, we were all green. I most certainly do not think that white is synonymous with American, I've seen white people who are not American, so why on earth would you say that?

What you inferred is not what I implied.

 

Ok man, I tried really hard to have a great discussion with you, but I can see that you are not interested in anything but name calling.

It seems that it's only the white folks who are trying to get along these days, doesn't it Nat? And then "people of color" wonder why white folks don't want to hang out with them.

 

Then perhaps you should choose your words more carefully and proofread before you post. Any educated native speaker of English would've taken your post to mean that you considered 'white people' as synonymous with American (in juxtaposition to brown people/Mexicans/illegals et al). You may not have meant it that way but any reasonable person would take it that way.

 

Huh? I know heaps and heaps of white folks that 'hang out' with 'people of colour' (a few in my family). Matter of fact, the overwhelmingly majority of Caucasians I know have absolutely no problem at all. Simply not a consideration and would consider it odd to raise the thought. Then again, I strongly suspect we are of different ages, geographical areas and backgrounds. But your point about "only white folks who are trying to get along these days" is probably a clue why said people of colour don't hang out with you specifically. Just a thought. Inshallah, Nat ibn Rufus

 

Nah it's more like you are going to see racism wherever you want to. Like the other day, two old black ladies at the deli counter at a local store getting pieces of fried chicken and fussing about "short thighs" with the clerk behind the counter. My wife and I approach and make eye contact with the remaining clerk and we told him we wanted 8 pieces of chicken, we didn't care what kind, just give us 8 of them.

He said ok, put 8 pieces in the box and handed it to us around the side of the black ladies, who immediately looked at us and then each other and said "It's because they white."

No it wasn't, but that's the way they want to see it, so that's the way they will see it. No matter what.

One of these days, I will just stop trying.

Leaving work now and must put the laptop away, have a good one.

 

What's different now is that:

There was no social welfare system then. It was sink or swim.

Many sank. About a 3rd of immigrants went home because they couldn't make it here.

Then we had a culture of assimilation, we no longer believe in that, or expect it from immigrants.

Then, we had millions of unskilled jobs, Now, we have a much smaller, and shrinking, pool of unskilled jobs. Those numbers, thanks to automation, will continue to diminish.

Key to what you said, "with special emphasis on high IQ, highly skilled immigrants." Our immigration prioritizes family connections, not IQ or skills. If we inverted our immigration pyramid and opened the doors to highly educated or highly skilled people, rather than my cousin the sheepherder, immigration would be a value added bonus to the US economy. Right now it's mostly a negative.

 

As far as the social welfare system - I think this is an argument to reform the social welfare system rather than severely restrict low skilled immigration. I'm not sure if the illegal immigrants are a net drain on the social welfare system - it seems unlikely given that they have a hard time collecting from our largest programs - social security and medicare/medicaid.

I haven't read too much of the literature, but I think some fears of no assimilation might be overstated http://ccis.ucsd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Jimenez-Fitzgerald-2007.pdf . Assimilation is still the primary means of upward mobility, and we have no reason to think that this generation of immigrants desire upward mobility any less (after all, they came here in the first place).

Shrinking unskilled jobs? Not really.... http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/08/immigration_bill_unskilled_labor There are tons of low skilled positions waiting to be filled.

My ideal immigration policy would charge various fees based on skill level and other factors, in addition to a certain number of first come first serve or lottery spots. This way you get a balanced sample (so immigration won't hurt low or high skilled laborers).

 

goto silicon valley, CA, or tech company see how many foreigner or Non-us born contribute to US tech and economy

[video=youtube;e7D3_eGaO5k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7D3_eGaO5k[/video]

 

Nice knowin' ya, America.

 

Oh, so brown skinned tone person with a white shirt and baggy pants is the criteria for an EVIL illegal alien, eh?

 

Ah, but you did say this: "They've said these things out loud and we ("we" being white people) aren't supposed to be able to call them on it?"

One has to wonder why you even brought up white people in the first place. It would be one thing if you said "We being Americans", but you said white people.

 

Obviously because in his mind American is, as I tried pointing out to him, synonymous with white. I would imagine he considers all us black folks and Asians and Indians and Hispanics as temporay and unwelcome visitors. Man oh man, does he have a shock coming.

 

Everyone says they want the social welfare system reformed, but no one says how exactly they want to reform it, and I see you follow in this great tradition.

As far as assimilation goes, it's not about the desire for upward mobility, but the means. I'm not sure what exactly you were trying to demonstrate with Jimenez study, since it seemed to confirm what other similar studies have shown, that Mexican third generation still has not caught up with the mean in education and income. So in other words, there is still a lag in assimilation. We seem to have plenty of poverty in the US, so I'm not sure why so many people want to import more.

I couldn't read the FP article since I'm not registered on the site, but I'm open to listening to the argument that we need to import millions of low skilled immigrants because of some future need of unskilled labor, however we certainly don't have a shortage of unskilled labor now. I for one would like to squeeze low skilled labor markets so wages would go up on the low end, but I realize if you're a corporate type you may not like that idea. But we have a pretty extensive Visa system for a variety of low skilled jobs, particularly agriculture, so if we really needed more low skilled workers it would be relatively easy to turn on the spigot to let them in.

I'm not sure what national goal you are trying to meet with your ideal immigration system, but my ideal immigration system would prioritize the needs of US workers over foreign ones. A radical idea these days I know, but I think as nation we have an obligation to Americans first. Immigration should be to benefit our country, not just to benefit foreigners.

 

I would get rid of most social welfare programs and replace them with cash grants (except when financial need is highly variable like certain kinds of medical care, or when the government has an excellent track record, which is rare). I didn't mention specifics earlier because this thread is about immigration, not social welfare reform.

There is always going to be a lag in assimilation - it takes time to learn the language and acquire additional skills. I think one of the points in the study was that assimilation has always been the road to riches, and who doesn't want that? As far as "importing poverty" - based on the relatively large amounts of money being sent back to immigrants' home countries, I would assume this means they have more than enough to support themselves here and plenty left over to help their families back home. Additionally, its worth noting that immigrants from poor countries aren't just a random sample of poor people - they are the most hardworking, risk taking, motivated workers in the country - otherwise they wouldn't immigrate.

The point of the FP article is basically that to achieve targeted US economic growth, we need a lot more workers than there are now. If we don't get those workers, yes wages will go up, but we also will fall short of economic growth targets - making it that much harder to support all of the outsize social programs, military spending, etc. I know this is anecdotal but I read an article earlier this year about an immigration crackdown that caused a bunch of produce farmers in the southern states to simply let their crop rot - they couldn't find labor to harvest it profitably because no American would do the unpleasant work for minimum wage.

The national goal is a strong economy which will give us more global influence than we would otherwise have - which we can achieve broadly with two things: 1) higher population and 2) better technology. Raising the wages of low skill workers (by restricting immigration) certainly doesn't contribute to either of these, so in my view this harms the country. It is helping the low-skilled workers a little bit at the expense of the country's future.

To see what happens when you are extremely xenophobic and allow your population to age and collapse - look at Japan. They experienced huge growth in the 80s, but now have an ageing population that isn't having any kids, so by 2100 the population is projected to be something like 2/3 what it is now.

 

Well I think you know that no such reform is on the way.

Yes there is going to be a lag, but three generations? I don't doubt that Mexican workers are hard working, but if they are not translating that into matching US mean income levels after 3 generations, than there is a problem there. I think that should be looked at and addressed. I don't know what point you are trying to make about remittances though. Sending money home doesn't mean you are rich. For most of them, the purpose of being here is to send money home.

Just to be clear, you are saying that raising the wages of low skilled workers via restricting the labor supply via immigration, "harms the country?"

We have very different ideas of what makes a good economy. You seem to want a population of hundreds of millions of coolies, even though you've not even attempted to make the argument on why the economy needs them, other than just pumping up our numbers.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not opposed to immigration, I just want it to benefit the United States. It seems to me that it's common sense that an immigration system's purpose should be to enhance the needs and to benefit...the United States. Anything that you claim we need, younger people, skilled people, unskilled, people, can be acquired through a targeted immigration system. Although I have to admit, I don't understand why you think it's a necessity. 1 in 4 Americans of working age (25-54) don't have jobs. So it's mine boggling that so many people see the need to import millions of unskilled workers.