Mulvaney: US "desperate" for more immigrants

[RiverDog]

This is what I've been saying for some time, that we need an immigration policy that provides for a robust number of legal immigrants, preferably young, healthy, educated, and well vetted, in just about every sector of the American economy, from agriculture to construction to medicine, if it is to grow and fuel all of these ambitious social programs that we are about to embark on. Now Trump's own Chief of Staff has directly contradicted his boss's claim that "we're full":

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said at a private event Wednesday that the US is "desperate" for more legal immigrants to help grow the economy, according to audio of his comments obtained by The Washington Post.

"We are desperate -- desperate -- for more people," Mulvaney said during the event in England, according to the Post. "We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we've had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants."

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/politics ... index.html

That's one of my biggest non character objections about Donald Trump, that he not only wants to stop illegal immigration, which I am for (except for the wall), he wants to REDUCE legal immigration by making false claims about their worthiness as law abiding citizens and our economy's need for more workers to fill open and in many cases critical positions.

The fact is that we have historically low unemployment numbers with more job openings than unemployed, our demographic are getting older and older with birth rates on a steady decline and the ratio of people on SS and Medicare getting worse and worse. At some point, the economy is going to have to slow down due to the lack of available labor to fill critical jobs, taxes will have to be raised to account for the lower worker-to-retiree ratio, and prices will go up as shortages will increase when suppliers are unable to meet demand.

It appears that Donald Trump will soon be looking for a new Chief of Staff. It's hard to see him keeping a person in his inner circle that has a 180 degree polar opposite view on one of his major campaign issues.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

I would think they need to somehow streamline the process. The young, healthy, educated, and well-vetted immigrants are the ones that jump through the most hoops. We have an all-star bridge engineer at my firm that had to leave the company and enroll in graduate school for two semesters because his name didn't get drawn in the H1B Visa lottery the first go around. This is a guy that bought a brand new car and works 45-50 hours a week; definitely helping the economy.

[RiverDog]

I would think they need to somehow streamline the process. The young, healthy, educated, and well-vetted immigrants are the ones that jump through the most hoops. We have an all-star bridge engineer at my firm that had to leave the company and enroll in graduate school for two semesters because his name didn't get drawn in the H1B Visa lottery the first go around. This is a guy that bought a brand new car and works 45-50 hours a week; definitely helping the economy.

I know a guy who's work visa was held up for 3 months because of a spelling error on his name (he's an Iraqi with a hyphenated last name that's difficult for us Anglos to pronounce/spell) on the work permit application so that it didn't match that which was on his passport. He had to hire an immigration attorney just to get his work permit approved. Most illegals are here because they've overstayed or violated the terms of their visa, not because they snuck through the Arizona desert or swam the Rio Grande, and with incidents like those we've mentioned, it's no wonder so many of them have run afoul of the law.

I'm against de-criminalization of illegal border crossings, believe that we should strengthen our ports of entry and monitoring of our border, and I'm a proponent of strong vetting of anyone entering the country. That was one of the lessons of 9/11 that so many liberals seem to have forgotten. But Trump's immigration policy is driven by his racism and xenophobia of anyone that doesn't look or speak like the rest of us.

[Aseahawkfan]

Our tax system and economic growth was built on population growth and consumption. Immigrants are needed for that with Americans having fewer kids. Most of the immigrants I talk to work harder to improve themselves here than most of the American parents I've met. American parents have become a lazy, undisciplined, soft, fat group of people with overly feminized men that let their wives run the house. No more pushing their kids hard to succeed or the type of work ethic that most of us, our fathers, and grandfathers learned that taught professionalism, work ethic, and the like to ensure you could compete in the workplace. Then there is the total lack of math and science being pushed on kids. Asian and Indian kids parents are like, "You're going to be a doctor or engineer or else." American parents, "I'm going to let my kid pick what they want to do. They can make their own decision. I don't like forcing them to do anything that makes them uncomfortable or unhappy." Then they wonder why their kids are struggling in school and life when they're going up against kids pushed by their parents to succeed and learn important, uncomfortable skills by sacrificing fun time to do homework. Then I gotta listen to politicians for more money for schools that don't force kids to do well.

One thing I have to give Europe and Asia is their schools are no joke. You perform or you will have problems in life and society. They don't tolerate this lazy American public K1 to 12 crap where parents seem to think they just make their kid go to satisfy the government. Terrible way to compete against nations that pushing education in math and science as the future.

[RiverDog]

Our tax system and economic growth was built on population growth and consumption. Immigrants are needed for that with Americans having fewer kids. Most of the immigrants I talk to work harder to improve themselves here than most of the American parents I've met. American parents have become a lazy, undisciplined, soft, fat group of people with overly feminized men that let their wives run the house. No more pushing their kids hard to succeed or the type of work ethic that most of us, our fathers, and grandfathers learned that taught professionalism, work ethic, and the like to ensure you could compete in the workplace. Then there is the total lack of math and science being pushed on kids. Asian and Indian kids parents are like, "You're going to be a doctor or engineer or else." American parents, "I'm going to let my kid pick what they want to do. They can make their own decision. I don't like forcing them to do anything that makes them uncomfortable or unhappy." Then they wonder why their kids are struggling in school and life when they're going up against kids pushed by their parents to succeed and learn important, uncomfortable skills by sacrificing fun time to do homework. Then I gotta listen to politicians for more money for schools that don't force kids to do well.

One thing I have to give Europe and Asia is their schools are no joke. You perform or you will have problems in life and society. They don't tolerate this lazy American public K1 to 12 crap where parents seem to think they just make their kid go to satisfy the government. Terrible way to compete against nations that pushing education in math and science as the future.

That's absolutely true. As I've often said, I would much rather have a crew of immigrants than I would native born. They don't have this sense of entitlement like their native born counterparts. Even language barriers are easy to overcome. The difference is that immigrants have a thirst for social acceptance that's naturally absent with native born. A smile or a thumbs up from the boss does wonders. They are more motivated to do a quality job simply to please the boss and are less likely to complain.

Numbers don't lie. It's impossible to deny that our birth rate has been going down for decades. It's impossible to deny that our unemployment rate is at historical lows and that there are more job openings than there are unemployed. It is impossible to deny that the average age of workers is getting older and that the older a person is, the more likely they're going to need medical attention.

It doesn't take a "stable genius" to figure out that at some point, the economy is going to have to shrink if something isn't done to address this labor shortage that we have. Either we find ways to do these jobs with machines or we allow immigrants to fill job openings. And even if we do find ways to replace some jobs with automation, it still doesn't address the problem with the average age of workers getting older. If the average age continues to trend older and the worker to retiree ratio continues to get worse, they will have to raise taxes or find some other source of revenue to fund existing social programs, not to mention the ambitious plans of our socialistic politicians.

It's refreshing to see someone within Trump's inner circle that recognizes this reality. Trump is making huge cuts in the number of LEGAL immigrants, and in the absence of any factual explanation as to why, I can only conclude that his resistance is due to ethnic and/or racial intolerance if not downright bigotry.

[RiverDog]

Here's a study performed by the Cato Institute of crime in Texas, a state with a very large number of immigrants, both legal and illegal and what they concluded:

Some commentators argue that there is “immigrant privilege” in the criminal justice system whereby immigrants face fewer criminal convictions even though they are arrested for more crimes.17 However, the arrest rate for illegal immigrants is lower than for natives overall but higher for just a handful of individual crimes—very similar to the conviction rate. Lower arrest rates for illegal immigrants overturns the “immigrant privilege” hypothesis.

Commentators also disproportionately blame immigrants for sex assaults and sex offenses. This brief combines sexual assault and sexual offense into the criminal category of sex crimes. There were 28.6 sex crime convictions of illegal immigrants per 100,000 in 2015, about 7.9 percent fewer than for native‐​born Americans in the same year. The sex crime conviction rate for legal immigrants was 69 percent below that of natives. There were many fewer sex crime convictions against immigrants, including illegal immigrants, than against native‐​born Americans in Texas in 2015.

The homicide conviction rate for illegal immigrants was 16 percent below that of native‐​born Americans in Texas in 2015. The conviction rates for illegal immigrants were 7.9 percent and 77 percent below that of native‐​born Americans for sex crimes and larceny, respectively. For all criminal convictions in Texas in 2015, illegal immigrants had a criminal conviction rate 50 percent below that of native‐​born Americans. Legal immigrants had a criminal conviction rate 66 percent below that of native‐​born Americans.

https://www.cato.org/publications/immig ... ndnote-003

[Aseahawkfan]

We all know the immigrant issue is a red herring. I've already state my main concern about immigration is not the people so much as the way business is using immigration to drive down wages by creating a global labor pool where they get to seek the cheapest possible labor and import them if necessary. That isn't good for Americans trying to achieve a higher wage and standard of living. I never bought into the immigrants are criminals or bad people. That part was just rubbish. Culturally different, sure, but no culture glorifies criminal behavior and most cultures are far harsher than America on criminals. Their prisons and police are crueler and harsher and no wants to deal with the police or be in a foreign prison. Our prisons may not be as comfortable as Europe or maybe some first world Asian nations, but they are fairly comfortable other than being stuck in a small area with other criminals.

For the most part I'm ok with immigration especially with an unemployment rate this low, but immigration should be tied to economic health. When the economy is tanking, we shouldn't be looking to bring more people in.

That's how I think they should do it.

[RiverDog]

We all know the immigrant issue is a red herring. I've already state my main concern about immigration is not the people so much as the way business is using immigration to drive down wages by creating a global labor pool where they get to seek the cheapest possible labor and import them if necessary. That isn't good for Americans trying to achieve a higher wage and standard of living. I never bought into the immigrants are criminals or bad people. That part was just rubbish. Culturally different, sure, but no culture glorifies criminal behavior and most cultures are far harsher than America on criminals. Their prisons and police are crueler and harsher and no wants to deal with the police or be in a foreign prison. Our prisons may not be as comfortable as Europe or maybe some first world Asian nations, but they are fairly comfortable other than being stuck in a small area with other criminals.

For the most part I'm ok with immigration especially with an unemployment rate this low, but immigration should be tied to economic health. When the economy is tanking, we shouldn't be looking to bring more people in.

That's how I think they should do it.

I completely agree that our immigration policy should be directly linked not only to our economy, but also to our infrastructure and physical ability to handle more people (schools, housing, etc). There should be preferences given to age (18-35) and education. I also think that we should be working with other countries, particularly those in the western hemisphere, to control the flow of immigrants, enter into agreements with them to provide good vetting and documentation of those wishing to enter, prevent human trafficking, ect. We shouldn't have to be dealing with mass attempts to crash the border.

I also believe that immigrants seeking long term visas and/or eventual citizenship should be required to show at least a primitive proficiency in speaking English or show enrollment in an ESL class. I do not believe in the decriminalization of illegal border crossings and I support efforts to strengthen border control, just not the wall. That's not a position that most Democrats want to hear.

[idhawkman]

I would think they need to somehow streamline the process. The young, healthy, educated, and well-vetted immigrants are the ones that jump through the most hoops. We have an all-star bridge engineer at my firm that had to leave the company and enroll in graduate school for two semesters because his name didn't get drawn in the H1B Visa lottery the first go around. This is a guy that bought a brand new car and works 45-50 hours a week; definitely helping the economy.

Never going to happen until the dems start addressing it. Right now the dems only want low skilled illegal immigrants.

[c_hawkbob]

Right now the dems only want low skilled illegal immigrants.

Complete troll thing to say. I don't know of anyone, of any party affiliation of whom that statement would be true.

[idhawkman]

Complete troll thing to say. I don't know of anyone, of any party affiliation of whom that statement would be true.

Totally true Bob. When the dems could do something they didn't. When Trump offer DACA to the kids they poison piled it. They have not offered a single serious comprehensive immigration proposal -ever!

[RiverDog]

I would think they need to somehow streamline the process. The young, healthy, educated, and well-vetted immigrants are the ones that jump through the most hoops. We have an all-star bridge engineer at my firm that had to leave the company and enroll in graduate school for two semesters because his name didn't get drawn in the H1B Visa lottery the first go around. This is a guy that bought a brand new car and works 45-50 hours a week; definitely helping the economy.

Never going to happen until the dems start addressing it. Right now the dems only want low skilled illegal immigrants.

Where are you getting your information that illegals are "low skilled"? Most studies show that anywhere from 40-50% of all illegal aliens came here legally and are afoul of the law for having violated the terms of their work visas, and that could be from any of a large range of occupations from doctors to mechanics, not just a bunch of apple pickers and asparagus cutters.

And Cbob is exactly right. That was a completely troll thing to say. The fact that the two sides can't pass a bipartisan immigration bill does not suggest that one side doesn't want to fix the problem.