Our Immigration System Is Broken

Heard President Obama on TV say: "Our immigration system is broken"

Oh Wow !

Would Mr. Obama express that our V.A. health system is broken? Or that our Medicaid Trust Fund is running out of money?

 

Okay?.......

 

It's because he wants future voters who are loyal to his political party, not that legal citizenship is a barrier to voting in this day and age or anything.

 

So, what is it about immigrants that make them loyal to Democrats?
I'll give you a minute.

 

The immigration 'system' is NOT broken, it simply has not been properly enforced by those we've been electing to enforce the laws that exist. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that our government is broken.

 

"Broke" is the word you are looking for.

 

I didn't feel it necessary to state the obvious, but you are correct.

 

What’s broken and why?

You could ask for whom it is broken or not broken, who gains advantage and who becomes disadvantaged?

Just off the top of my head -

Unskilled immigrants even (or especially) illegal ones are a cheap labour force that advantage those employing them and its argued bring down wages across the board again advantaging employers.

Bringing in more skilled labour can mean not having to spend so much up-skilling your domestic labour force – people educated or trained somewhere else got their education and training paid for by someone else. Again that can advantage employers.

 

What’s broken and why?

I like many others think the big problem with US politics today is the influence and power of wealth in the American system, to me the system seems unbalanced and that is whay its not working as it should, is it broken or dysfunctional?

Does it need replacing and if so with what or could it be reformed and if so how?

 

I for one am thrilled to see America will be a spanish speaking country in about a century :cheers2:

 

Lets just hope we Europeans aren't all speaking Arabic by then.

 

Back in the days of yore--say--the 40s, there was a program in which workers were brought from mexico to work in the fields during harvest season. They were called 'braceros. Pretty well organized then and they always went back to mexico to wait for next years crops after they finished here. But the mexicans and others figured-what the hell--let's just stay in the US and work all the time. That worked out well for farmers. They didn't have to pay them much and they were diligent, hard workers. And often easy to take advantage of. So when the bracero program was over--no one--especially the huge farms had nothing to complain about. The republicans had no problem with using the undocumented immigrants. ( and I'm saying right here--that most farmers are republicans. Especially in the San Joaquin Valley.) They got their crops in for them and didn't really have to deal with them as they mostly lived away from the farms in enclaves of their own.

Nobody--neither democrats nor republicans said or did very much, if anything about there being so many 'illegals'back then and clear on up until now. FLASH= UH-oh. Wait a minute. These people are becoming citizens and are now voting. And they're voting DEMOCRAT!! Well now that ain't 'gonna get it. Hmmmmm. Let's see. Elections coming. The democrats! It's their fault. Yeah--that's the ticket. OBAMA! It's his fault!! Damn rights. WE, the republicans have ALWAYS protected our---. Let's see--that won't work. Aw fuck it. Throw it out there anyway. They'll buy it. They're buying the rest of our bullshit. Alright. Go with it.

 

Things in the UK are different, but immigration has become a hot political issue in recent times. 2 different lots of immigrants - those from the former empire, and europeans from countries like Poland. There's also an unknown number of illegals. There's talk about our leaving the EU and this is one of the issues which fuels that particular fire.

But there's another side to this too, and I'm not sure if the US has the same issue, I know they do in Japan. It's a matter of demographics and economics.

The problem is that because the birth rate fell at the end of the 'baby boom' years, the UK faces a situation where there will be too many pensioners for the working age population to pay for in taxation. So we need immigrants to come and work here and pay UK tax. It's hard to see any other solution.
Also as a result of a declining education system, we have a shortage of people with needed skills.

 

the problem with illegal immigration, excluding the newer situation where children are arriving in droves from some of the most dangerous countries in the world, is that there is a huge job market for illegal immigrants but no one wants to punish the businesses providing jobs, only the immigrants desperate for said job.

 

What is the immigration 'system', and in what way is it broken?

 

To me the immigration ‘debate’ in the UK is dominated by scapegoating and scaremongering promoted by the media especially the right wing media – remember the hoards of Romanians who were supposed to be arriving when migration and employment restrictions were removed – it didn’t happen

They often put emphasis on migrants getting benefits and healthcare although European immigrants contributed £8.8bn more to the fiscal system than they received in benefits.

And this was all known and understood a long time ago – I remember discussion back when the EU was thinking about granting membership to the old soviet satellites and one of the arguments put forward in favour by some free marketeers was the economic boost that would come from exploiting their cheap labour (bring down wages across the board).

If Britain left the EU it doesn’t necessarily follow that the number of these migrant workers would fall – the economy would need them.

Thing is that when people make comments like –

“Lets just hope we Europeans aren't all speaking Arabic by then”

You now that the propaganda is working.

 

I agree with what you're saying here.

My comment about us speaking Arabic was meant kind of tongue in cheek - I don't really think there's any possibility of that. Probably though it was ill advised.

However - I am a bit concerned that many Muslim immigrants don't seem to integrate very well into UK society. On one hand, I don't blame them, as it is not the kind of society I would choose. But nor am I very keen on Islamic values.
I think this issue is sure to lead to more trouble in the future.

 

Blake

Sorry I should have seen it as a joke, the problem is that I’ve actually heard the same comment said seriously.

I think a lot do integrate.

To me one problem is the concept of faith schools and education, in my view it shouldn’t be allowed, for a start any educational institution receiving any type of public money should not be allowed to be faith based. This is not aimed at any specific religion but all.

 

You were right to call me on that remark. It's not easy sometimes to tell whether someone is serious or not in the online world.

I agree 100% about faith based education. And I agree too that it isn't just Islamic schools that are a problem. I would also like to do away with private education - but I think that's a different issue.

 

Blake

Agreed on private educational institutions but also agreed that that is another issue.