If borders were open

It makes it heinous, because heinous things are said and done with that argument. "We shouldn't hire women, because they will affect the culture we have", etc.

Not on every matter but the matter which is purview of the Fed. I.e. on the matters, which the Constitution gives to the Fed. It's been stretched quite far through the commerce clause but at the end the Fed's interior power is limited by design.

Practically it does not matter since the Fed has to rely on the states to enforce the law. So even with the immigration, which is in purview of Fed, we have 10s of millions of illegals (the exact number is not even known, think about it for a second) still in the country because states prevent the enforcement.

>Beyond just technical authority granted by the constitution, you have to remember that the Fed controls around a third of state budgets through various forms of federal aid, meaning they can withhold funding... See Kate's Law for an example of that.

Exactly. See if it will ever pass. And if it passed - see a multi-decade legal battle waged by states to kill it in courts.

The only practical solution I see is to shift welfare to the state level. Then the states will become interested not only in the quantity but also the quality of their population. Though the states are going to fight it even harder than the direct immigration enforcement IMHO.

I'm not in an economics class, I'm following local developments.

> If they had zero opportunity in x country, they wouldnt go to x country.

That's a total fallacy. The majority people arriving here initially knew next to nothing about Germany. They were promised by their traffickers all kinds of nonsense, like that they would get a free house and a car. It took a while for the message to spread that it ain't all cotton candy over here. Some still had false beliefs, because people like to believe comfortable lies. Either way, if they come here they get refugee benefits, which is better here than in most other EU countries. It's not an opportunity in my sense, it's a handout.

> Any quota or restriction is meant to be protectionist. Trump didnt put the quotas.

I'm not talking about quotas. I'm talking about choosing who you let in. I'm not arguing for the exact same system that the US has, so stop pointing out its flaws. If we set the requirement that everyone would need to have at least basic literacy and English skills, a huge amount of the people coming in right now wouldn't be allowed. That would still be way more people than we actually need.

> It's important to call it oppression because it what it is: it's negative, it's the application of force to harm someone. If any person is in favor of such measures, I will call them on that, that they are advocating for harming other people, maybe to their own benefit.

Again, who cares? You're not convincing anybody that needs convincing.

You keep arguing in terms of idealizations (or outliers, like San Francisco). Your argument may make sense there, it won't win you anything in the real world. In the real world, you have to deal with real people. Even if the economic argument makes sense, it's a long-term development. Do you believe people want cheaper products later or keep their job now? If they lose their jobs now, they can't just retrain in a heartbeat to become something else, especially not here in Germany. They'll be unemployed, which is culturally a source of shame.

As for the backlash: We've had hundreds of arson attacks against refugee housing and we've had a right-wing populist party come out of nowhere and gain 10% in the elections. Again, well over 95% of refugees have no jobs and little job prospects, even after being here for over a year. How many years will it take, according to your calculations?

The German population is also assuming that these refugees will leave eventually, not stay. Of course, the same was assumed about the Turkish workers coming in in the sixties (they were referred to as "guest workers"). Most of them stayed, now Germany is 5% Turkish-Germans, which are perceived as neither "truly German" not "truly Turkish" by their respective peoples. Their level of success in this society is well below average, which tells you that the level of acceptance isn't as high as people would openly admit to.

If it wasn't for all the WW2 guilt, people would be very open about not wanting Germany to become a ethnic melting pot, like the US. Compare this with countries like Poland or Hungary, where the idea of defending ethnic homogeneity is part and parcel of mainstream politics. As WW2 becomes more of a distant past, the same ideas may take hold here as well.

As for the homeless, I'll just mention that 16 homeless people were murdered in Germany in 2016 alone, which is (per capita) more than in the US (tendency: rising). One of them has been set on fire, just for "fun". He burned to death.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/kriminalitaet/gewalt...

I am quite aware of this.

>Cooperation with local authorities is great, but state authorities aren't the ones removing people from the country.

Sure. Imagine you are an officer of ICE. You sit in the nice office in the federal building in LA. How does your day go by? You deport people? Which people? They are not exactly lining up to your doors to get deported, are they? So you need to find them somehow, bring them to court, get a judgment and then find them again and remove them from the country. This is the police work and you are not equipped to do it. You don't have beat cops, you don't get information from various agencies illegals use (from schools to social services, all under state control despite spending federal money). You were supposed to get referrals from the local law enforcement. You are not getting any. You act on tips and bust 1000 people a quarter in a city, which likely has several million illegals.

>I don't know enough to say what states can do to demand funding through the court system, but it passed in the House.

If only passing the House had been enough to make a law...

> At some point, enforcement is required.

Sure, but then states would actually help enforcement instead of impeding it as they are doing now.