Posted on 08/04/2017 11:10:40 PM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
The immigration reform bill that Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue introduced Wednesday — the RAISE Act — won’t become law anytime soon. But it’s a milestone that’s going to change the way we think about immigration, and will be the biggest issue in 2018 and 2020.
There are two simple principles behind the bill. We’re going to admit people on the basis that they’ll make Americans better off. And amnesty is off the table.
The bill would reduce the number of family-preference immigrants, people who come here because they have an immediate relative in the country. Right now two-thirds of our green cards each year go to family members. They’re a source of chain migration, people admitted because they have a relative here, and who once here bring their relatives in.
Under the RAISE Act, the number of family-preference immigrants would drop from 600,000 a year to less than 90,000. Along the way, the bill would eliminate the idiotic lottery system, which at present admits 50,000 people a year who hold a lucky ticket.
The case for family-reunification preferences is far weaker today than in the past. In the 19th century, the immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island didn’t expect they’d be seeing their relatives in the old country again. It was the long goodbye. But today it’s different. Compared to 1965, plane tickets and calling cards are cheap, and Skype is free.
It’s often thought that our existing immigration policies impoverish America, but when economists run the numbers it’s not clear that on net they’re costly. The most respected immigration scholar, George Borjas, concludes that one really can’t say. That’s not the end of it, however.
Even if immigration on net is an economic zero, it still creates winners and losers within the United States
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I've had this very conversation with my son. "What is wrong with the United States's having policies that, first and foremost, benefit the United States?" This leaves open plenty of room to benefit other countries and individual foreigners, but says that, as a nation, we don't have to "give until it hurts" to help the world. (Christians as individuals are called to sacrificial giving, but that's a separate issue.)
My son doesn't have any real arguments, just mumble-mumble, "I'm not sure about that," etc. I think the real point is that he doesn't see any immediate harm to himself in unrestricted immigration, so it's a "free moral good" to him, while personally helping another person would have an obvious cost.
I love the smell of sarcasm early in the morning.
At least the Trump Administration has moved the bar further to the right for the starting position on the coming negotiations on immigration reform(amnesty) being pushed by the usual Senatorial suspects. You know, the art of the deal.
I would like to see the return of quotas by continents. That way the immigrants not only have the ability to help the US but have a good mix, and not just Hispanics and Africans which seem to be the current preference..
Both Houses refuse to represent the voters.
That’s right; our immigration policies have been determined by people who hate our right to vote - and have nothing but contempt for us. I’ve posted for years that Western governments (including our own) look to Red China’s control of their coolies with an eye towards implementing those policies here; they envy the way they can dominate over a billion people.
Juan McCain, Linda Graham, Snowey, that crazy Alaskan lady, corn Flakes, the Chamber of Commerce, Big Agra, etc won’t let something like this pass. The cheap labor express must continue, middle america be d!mned.
Here is the next large wave of immigrants coming into the country.
Asian Immigrants in the United States
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/asian-immigrants-united-states/
An even sex ratio to allowed immigrants would be useful also lest some of China and India’s sex imbalance becomes ours.
Because...
Emma Lazarus.
Poems are policy, no?
Been that way for a long time.
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