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Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

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Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#101

Post by kalleboo »

pandaman wrote: post #95
seldo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigrants are in no way entitled to social services. If an immigrant on a work visa loses their job, they are required to leave the country within 10 days. However, immigrants on visas still pay full taxes. So actually, immigrants make social services cheaper to provide. Any other general goods -- roads, fire services, etc. -- are paid for by taxes, and immigrants pay all the same taxes as citizens.

There are no immigrants on work visas. Illegal immigrants, by definition, don't have any visas and legal immigrants, the topic of the discussion, have an immigration visa which grants a lawful permanent resident status upon entering the country. Diversity visa immigrants are definitely entitled to all the support and benefits. They are also not required to work to keep their status. I have not seen the DV statistics…

> I imagine the unemployment among a bunch of random people who moved to a different country should be pretty high

They're not random people though. It's a selection of people who have the drive and willingness to uproot and move to another country. I'd expect unemployment to be lower.

Now if you were talking about refugees (an actual random sample of people who don't have a reason for moving), I'd agree.

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#102

Post by bruceboughton »

Alterlife wrote: post #94
anigbrowl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lamar Smith also authored the existing immigration law (IIRIRA) which is widely considered to be an abject failure. One provision had esteemed Judge Richard Posner exclaiming 'the law can't be that ridiculous!' before setting it aside in a recent case. The law had a provision for granting advance parole to people whose immigration proceedings were incomplete so they could leave the country for things like weddings, f…

I am not American, and I have no idea how American politics works... The bottom line to me is that despite (or because of) the things this chap is doing, he got reelected. Why are Americans voting for him?

People rarely vote for individuals. Instead they usually vote for parties.

This is certainly true in the UK. I suspect it's the case in the USA and most other democracies.

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#103

Post by 001sky »

bruceboughton wrote: post #102
Alterlife wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not American, and I have no idea how American politics works... The bottom line to me is that despite (or because of) the things this chap is doing, he got reelected. Why are Americans voting for him?

People rarely vote for individuals. Instead they usually vote for parties. This is certainly true in the UK. I suspect it's the case in the USA and most other democracies.

80% of individuals are re-elected in the house, in part because power structures reward seniority and create path-dependency, so the older your guy the he can "bring home the bacon" (aka, pork) to his constituents.

tldr, not true in the us. totally different system.

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#104

Post by icebraining »

onetwothreefour wrote: post #39
sharkweek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm saying the bill needs to be rewritten to not cannibalize the diversity visas. We need both high skill and low skill labor in massive quantities; and as a country, we're dancing around a ridiculously broken immigration system.

The assumption that the DV lottery only brings in low skill labor is both insulting and wrong.

Actually, the implicit assumption is that "only DV lottery brings in low skill labor", not that "DV lottery only brings in low skill labor".

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#105

Post by icebraining »

temphn wrote: post #79
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US economy is doing poorly because of energy policy, not population size. > Billions of dollars could be raised by turning these into entrepreneur visas or charging per visa ... Billions of dollars would be like pissing on a supernova. Putting out the fiscal fire will take trillions of dollars in economic reform and growth, and immigrants have historically been a big part of American boom times.

Oh, I agree with you that billions are nothing relative to what this government is spending. Bernanke prints $85 billion every month. Even charging 1 million dollars for each of these 50000 visas would raise only $50 billion. That said, the guys who could afford to pay that would better than these "lottery" admits. Young STEM grads would also be good. Canada and Singapore have far more rational immigration policies,…

I think the disagreement is on equating "giving away visas" with "giving away money".

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#106

Post by icebraining »

eaurouge wrote: post #57
wmil wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only requirement for a diversity visa is a high school equivalent. Considering how poor the job market is for HS only graduates, limiting visas to people with marketable skills makes a lot of sense.

Marketability should not be the only metric for valuing skills. How do you select the immigrant whose child will be the next Michael Phelps, or the next Einstein, or the next Pele?

*Pelé. "Pele" means skin ;)

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#107

Post by pandaman »

kalleboo wrote: post #101
pandaman wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no immigrants on work visas. Illegal immigrants, by definition, don't have any visas and legal immigrants, the topic of the discussion, have an immigration visa which grants a lawful permanent resident status upon entering the country. Diversity visa immigrants are definitely entitled to all the support and benefits. They are also not required to work to keep their status. I have not seen the DV statistics…

> I imagine the unemployment among a bunch of random people who moved to a different country should be pretty high They're not random people though. It's a selection of people who have the drive and willingness to uproot and move to another country. I'd expect unemployment to be lower. Now if you were talking about refugees (an actual random sample of people who don't have a reason for moving), I'd agree.

Well, we can disagree with each other all we want. Without the actual statistics this means nothing. I could not find the statistics for the US, there is one for Canada though http://www.clbc.ca/files/reports/fitting_in/transition_penal... which seems to support my point of view. But as I said, I'd be happy if somebody corrected me with numbers.

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#108

Post by seldo »

pandaman wrote: post #95
seldo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immigrants are in no way entitled to social services. If an immigrant on a work visa loses their job, they are required to leave the country within 10 days. However, immigrants on visas still pay full taxes. So actually, immigrants make social services cheaper to provide. Any other general goods -- roads, fire services, etc. -- are paid for by taxes, and immigrants pay all the same taxes as citizens.

There are no immigrants on work visas. Illegal immigrants, by definition, don't have any visas and legal immigrants, the topic of the discussion, have an immigration visa which grants a lawful permanent resident status upon entering the country. Diversity visa immigrants are definitely entitled to all the support and benefits. They are also not required to work to keep their status. I have not seen the DV statistics…

The 55,000 STEM visas discussed in the original article are all work visas. They require a job offer and proof that no American is available to take the position.

You are right that the diversity visa holders are eligible for benefits. In practice, however, immigration doesn't happen if people can't find jobs. During the 2007-2009 period, all immigration, including illegal immigration, dropped to zero, and may even have gone into reverse:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125356996157829123.html

The idea that people move to the united states in order to rely on the USA's incredibly shitty welfare system is just laughable.

Finally, this is 55,000 people a year. Do you think an increase in 0.01% of the US population is going to make any appreciable difference to any federal program's budget, even if all of them immediately applied for welfare? You could let in 10 times as many people and it would still be a rounding error.

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#109

Post by tptacek »

anigbrowl wrote: post #45
rndmize wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is the case, the title of the article strikes me as poorly chosen.

Declan McCullough's reporting on legal issues frequently seems completely off base to me.

Yes. He also recently reported Patrick Leahy supporting a measure to liberalize law enforcement access to email without a warrant; Leahy supported a measure that was effectively the opposite, which is no surprise as Leahy is one of the most liberal members of the Senate, with a very strong ACLU scorecard.

But fact checking this stuff would cost CNet rageviews.

Re: Obama opposes House passage of H.R. 6429

#110

Post by tptacek »

jedbrown wrote: post #70
anigbrowl wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lamar Smith also authored the existing immigration law (IIRIRA) which is widely considered to be an abject failure. One provision had esteemed Judge Richard Posner exclaiming 'the law can't be that ridiculous!' before setting it aside in a recent case. The law had a provision for granting advance parole to people whose immigration proceedings were incomplete so they could leave the country for things like weddings, f…

Good thing he's chairing the next House Science Committee. http://science.house.gov/press-release/chairman-hall-congrat...

Membership on House Science is unfortunately a signal of low status:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4655470

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