[quote=briansd1]We have 14 million unauthorized immigrants in this country. We could greatly improve aggregate social health by legalizing all 14 million of them.[/quote]
How would that improve aggregate social health?
You don’t seem to distinguish between the different types of immigrants. You say that by adding millions of poor, unskilled workers to our population that, magically, everything will turn out better. That hasn’t happened so far. “Cheap,” illegal labor (“cheap” only to the employers, not to the taxpayers…the profits have been privatized, and the losses/expenses socialized, yet again) has only served to drive down the wages of a huge portion of our population, while increasing the burden on taxpayer-funded education, infrastructure, healthcare, and legal/law enforcement systems in our country. It’s also increased housing costs for those very people whose wages have been decimated by this “cheap” labor. How can you say we’ve benefitted from this massive influx of low-skilled, illegal immigrants?
IMHO, immigration is fine, but we need to bring in people who will improve our economy, not burden it further. We can — and should — allow a certain number of refugees and people from poor countries to enter our country legally, but it needs to be limited and carefully monitored so that we don’t overwhelm our capacity to handle them.
In the meantime, the leaders of these poor countries need to get their sh~t together so that their people don’t feel desperate enough to risk their own lives just to escape. The level of corruption in these countries is off the charts.
