While I'm happy to see the movement towards eye issues, not gonna lie, folks, this thread's turn to discussing immigration tarnishes my opinion of the board.
What if all of the following unlucky 13 statements were true? (1) undocumented/illegal immigration is a net drain on taxpayers; (2) undocumented/illegal immigrants pay a higher burden of the taxes relative to their benefits than native-born wage earners in the same economic classes, and do contribute billions of dollars to local, state, and federal governments (although
still cause a net drain); (3) undocumented/illegal immigrants put a particular social and economic strain on particular border cities, and other localities where they congregate--typically places that have a high number of low-skilled jobs (often big cities and agricultural areas); (4) undocumented/illegal immigrants have a higher employment rate than similarly situated native-born members of the same economic classes (much higher for low-skilled, low-educated workers); (5) undocumented/illegal immigrants perform work that provides growth in many industries, so much so that many industries rely on those workers to remain profitable; (6) all immigration trends, including undocumented/illegal immigration, track fairly closely with unemployment rates--basically, immigrants (legal and illegal) go where the work is. Fewer jobs = fewer immigrants; (7) undocumented/illegal immigrants are people, who deserve to be treated with the same basic level of respect as any human being; (8) the crime rate among immigrants, including undocumented/illegal immigrants is lower than the crime rate among the native-born population--but all crime, particularly violent crime, is terrible for the communities it effects (and most immigrant crime is committed in immigrant communities, where crime reporting is often lower due to fear of deportation); (9) many immigrants--definitely including undocumented/illegal immigrants--are very hard working people who, when given the chance, can contribute a great deal to society, however, many undocumented/illegal immigrants are limited in their opportunities due to the fear of deportation; (10) the family is the basis of all social interaction, and strong families make for stronger societies; many undocumented/illegal immigrants are part of families that also contain native-born or naturalized citizens--the breakup of such families can be (and is) a very traumatic experience; (11) many undocumented/illegal immigrants came here legally, but overstayed their legal right to be here, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, and the patchwork of immigration laws can be very difficult to keep up with, even for well-educated immigrants, but particularly for less-educated immigrants; (12) documented non-citizens and citizens alike are already subject to abuse by the Department of Homeland Security because of the similarity of their names/race to many undocumented immigrants; that abuse is traumatic and damaging to immigrant communities (including--obviously--to those who are here legally); (13)
our immigration laws are not functioning well and need serious attention to fix them (including our asylum-processing system), but this is a nuanced issue that requires good faith solutions; neither open borders, nor massively expensive walls that have little hope of actually limiting the amount of illegal border crossings, nor mass deportations are realistic solutions to these problems.
A few things that I haven't spent a lot of time with, but present different perspectives, all of which are worthy of consideration:
https://calbudgetcenter.org/news/new-study-undocumented-immigrants-contribute-8-5-billion-in-california-taxes-a-year/https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/https://cis.org/Oped/Cost-Illegal-Immigrationchrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/files/research/Untying_the_Knot_Series_051909.pdf
