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It’s sad that pragmatically adjusting quotas is never the loudest argument in the room. I’m in favor of greatly increasing legal immigration, providing paths for safe work and citizenship (when that’s the goal). I’ll admit that my idea of an ideal system is probably not palatable for many. But if we could start from anywhere near a sane baseline, I’d understand wanting to gradually find sustainable quotas that take all factors into account. I’m done with purity tests and letting perfect be the enemy of good.

I suppose by “all factors” I mean all factors aside from exploitation and xenophobia, but I hope we could at least move the Overton window back that far.

by romaaeterna6 hours ago|

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Okay. Let's choose a small random country as a basis for your immigration ideas. Ie., Rwanda (pop 14.8m) or Israel (pop 10.24m). What is the quantity of immigration flow that you want, who and from where and on what basis of admission over what time period. What are your intended demographic, social, and political shifts that you say are going to be "not palatable" for the people living there now? In fact, please expand on exactly how "not palatable" you expect your plans to be for them.

by cmiles746 hours ago|

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This strikes me as an unreasonable demand on the author of the comment. Part of the point of the current system was (at least at some point) to have knowledgeable people, armed with the available facts, figures and theories make some attempt at balancing the safety of the incoming people against (at the very least) their economic impact on the country. From there some rudimentary guard rails (quotas, visa type, etc.) would be set. I suspect few of us in this forum feel comfortable making these decisions from behind a phone, tablet or laptop.

My understanding is that many of us, perhaps including the author of the comment to which you are responding, would like to see at lease some small, inching movement towards such a system.

by romaaeterna6 hours ago|

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On the contrary, asking for well-thought out political thought is the most reasonable demand in the world. If you have an idea about health care, national defense, or trade policy, I expect thought and numbers, not vague platitudes.

For example, you want small inching movement. From what starting point? Inching movement from the near-zero flows of the mid-20th century? Inching movement from the mass flows of the 21st century? Both ideas would have major consequences, and if you are going to advocate for mass social change, you should think it out and advocate with care and thoughtfulness.

by cmiles744 hours ago|

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I’d take rapid movement, honestly, I simply think it unlikely. In terms of what kind of change, I was speaking of movement toward a rational system with clear goals, with decisions made by knowledgeable people. With that in mind any movement, I think, should be estimated from the present. We can’t change the past!

Agreed, care and thoughtfulness should be the rule, not the exception. Presently we are getting neither. I’m a software developer, I don’t work in policy; but I believe our immigration position should be aligned with policy goals and I’m not sure we have any of those, either.

In any case, re-categorizing so many legal immigrants in order to imprison them strikes me as pointless and fundamentally wrong.

by sobellian6 hours ago|

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Why do we need to quantify an exact quota to qualify as well thought out political thought? Some people think about this issue from the basis of fundamental freedoms. Innocent, productive people deserve the opportunity to move where they obtain the most prosperity.

If I advocated abolition in the 19th century, it would be missing the point to turn around and say "oh yeah? And how many slaves would you like to free per year, and what effects do you expect that to have? Include examples of past slave rebellions"

by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF6 hours ago|

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> For example, you want small inching movement. From what starting point?

The obvious assumption is that they mean from where we are right now. We're not going to suddenly be at the mid-20th century again. This comes off as argumentative more than curious (as do your other comments in this thread, for what it's worth).

by romaaeterna6 hours ago|

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Advocating for small inching change to a rate is different from advocating from small inching change. Easy example: if you are in a car with an accelerator pedal depressed.

by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF5 hours ago|

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> Advocating for small inching change to a rate is different from advocating from small inching change.

No, it isn't. It is a change; whether it's acceleration or velocity is an implementation detail. Whether it should be changed suddenly or gradually is the spec.

by matwood7 hours ago|

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The US's strength is/was in part because of immigration. The best and brightest want to come to the US to go to school and then they often stay for the enormous opportunities only available in the US. I want any immigrant that wants to come to the US given a reasonable path to make that happen.

You are right that the Native Americans were completely misplaced by immigrants, but immigration made the US what it is today and I see no reason it won't continue to make the US a uniquely strong country.

by romaaeterna6 hours ago|

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You may be interested to learn that American immigration flows were higher or lower at various times (nearly zero for long periods). As you allude to with Native Americans, the effects of the different flows were not uniform on all people, and instead caused various negative and positive effects. The period of Americans great post-WWII economic and military rise came during its longest period of immigration moratorium, during which its population was fairly homogeneous. In recent decades, America has begun to decline economically and militarily relative to China, a country not subject to these "strengthening flows". Odd case.

by sobellian7 hours ago|

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The citizenry would probably fare no worse than with the arrival of the Irish, the Italians, or the Germans. What are you expecting, for the Indians or Chinese to sack DC aux Visigoths?

by the_gastropod6 hours ago|

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“Open borders” was pretty much standard across the world prior to World War 1. These tightly controlled immigration policies are, historically speaking, incredibly new.

I think it’s self evident that the U.S. benefited greatly from its mass immigration inflows in the 19th and 20th centuries.

by romaaeterna6 hours ago|

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Your statement has no basis whatsoever in reality. The US, for example, had a four-decade moratorium on immigration beginning in 1924. Mass immigration flows appeared at various times and places in the past (often accompanied by bloodshed and suffering), but it's highly incorrect to imagine that 21st-century 1st world demographic shifts are some sort of historical norm.

by Timon31 hours ago|

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How is the moratorium of any relevance considering WW1 ended a few years before 1924?

by gib4446 hours ago|

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It's a different world now

by margalabargala7 hours ago|

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Are you serious?

"Oh, you support immigration? Write an entire nation's immigration policy. Can't/won't do it? You must be a paid shill."

People are allowed to have opinions without regurgitating policy documents on demand.