Fascinating - Wall On The House

About $50-100 billion worth currently held by USDA are very marketable and attractive commercial paper investments. The rights to collect the remainder of the debt on these loans could be sold to private parties who would pay a premium for such a steady stream of cash payments. The sales would give a profit cushion to the government and alleviate taxpayers from any future risk of nonpayment while retaining certain borrower guarantees.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/12/24/donald-trump-shutdown-congress-approval-build-border-wall-spending-column/2402442002/

Immigration - About What?

This just seems too obvious, only a politician could miss these salient facts.

"Our present-day policy objectives are different. We have a populous, highly developed nation. With a declining birth rate and an aging workforce, we need young workers for a sophisticated economy and to support a growing population of retirees and our expensive retirement benefits programs. If that is our critical need, then meeting it should be the primary goal of our immigration system.

"That is exactly what Canada and Australia do. Under their merit-based “point systems,” they score applicants for admission on multiple criteria, with the most points awarded to 20-somethings, who are at the beginning of their prime work years. They accept virtually no one age 50 or older — no one with more retirement years than work years ahead of them."

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/374031-a-merit-based-future-beats-our-19th-century-immigration-system

This isn't what I want, I'd like to see an almost open border policy, say yes to anyone not a criminal, but also not give out social benefits like the coffers are full. But since nothing that radical will happen, here's a rationale that at least makes sense.

What is chain immigration?

Our current system is dominated by the family reunification program.

Family reunification is really a self-selection process where one immigrant selects the next, who need only be an extended family member. Thus the term “chain migration.” Essentially, the government has no selective function. It merely verifies kinship.

It is past time to abandon this non-selective element of the 19th century “come one, come all” policy designed to settle the West and develop its agrarian economy.

http://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/374031-a-merit-based-future-beats-our-19th-century-immigration-system

How Hard Would It Be To Make It Worse Than Now

Such changes might address the most egregious defects in immigration policies, yet the discussion shows how behind the curve the U.S. is compared with other countries. Canada and Australia, for example, skip the temporary work-visa step completely and offer fast-track permanent residencies to highly skilled workers and their spouses before they even arrive in the country. Australia offers almost as many employment-based green cards as the U.S., even though the American population is 14 times bigger.

http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/04/immigration-lessons-from-up-north

Not Often Heard on Immigration

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/21/immigrants_--_good_or_bad_106393.html
"She wants to copy Australia's and Canada's policy: "high skills, English language and education. ... We should be looking out for our own economic self-interest." Riley disagreed with MacDonald's claim that Mexican immigrants don't fit America's modern economy.

"(T)oday's immigrants coming here are not different in terms of their behavior patterns, in terms of their assimilation levels. They are simply newer."

"Immigrants increase crime!" is another charge hurled at illegals, but the data don't bear that out. There has been a surge in immigration over recent years, but crime has been dropping. Crime has dropped in the border areas of Arizona and California, too.

MacDonald said crime was high during immigration surges in the 1970s and '80s, and attributed the recent drop to higher incarceration rates. But Riley noted, "Incarceration reports from the Justice Department ... show that the native-born are five times more likely than the immigrant population to be arrested and incarcerated ... ."

But if today's illegals are not eligible for welfare, less likely to commit crimes and eager to work, why are people in the border states so ticked off?

"Why wouldn't they be?" Riley said. "It's chaos down there. There's trespassing. There are people breaking the law. We're a nation of laws. It's out of control. The question is how to fix it. And I don't think sealing off the border is the best way to fix it. I think regulating the flow is the best way to fix it."

It would be easier to "regulate the flow" if America made it easier for people to work here legally. State Department data show that a British Ph.D. in bioengineering must wait about six months to get a green card. A South African computer programmer, six years. An Indian computer programmer, 35 years.

A Mexican with a high school diploma must wait a theoretical 131 years! No wonder people sneak into America.

Black markets make problems worse. America should let more people come here legally."

Immigration

"You can sing about sea to shining sea or amber waves of grain, but it's immigration that provides America's basic rhythm. Nothing distinguishes the American experience from that of other nations more than the mass migration of people from elsewhere to here. We are truly a nation of immigrants: Close to 90% of the population--excluding Native Americans and those who were forced here in shackles--moved here out of their own volition.

Not that this has made things any easier for immigrants. In the 1850s the nativist Native American Party--reacting to a wave of Irish Catholic and German immigrants--declared that America faced "an imminent peril" from immigrants "of an ignorant and immoral character." California in the late 19th century tried to ban Asian immigration and land ownership. In 1924 immigration from everywhere outside northern Europe was severely restricted.

The current wave of immigration, largely from Asia and Latin America, has once again sparked nativist fears. (Witness Arizona's recent, harsh immigration law.) Yet America needs immigrants now more than ever. The U.S., like virtually all advanced countries, produces insufficient native-born children to prevent it from becoming a granny nation-state by 2050.

Only immigration can provide the labor force, the expanding domestic markets and, perhaps most important, the youthful energy to keep our society vital and growing. Many bustling sections of American cities--the revived communities along the number 7 train line in Queens, N.Y., Houston's Harwin Corridor, Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley--are dominated by immigrant enterprise. In contrast, the cities without large-scale immigration, such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, have stagnant and even declining populations.

In the future successful immigration will distinguish America from most key competitors. Globally, resistance to immigration or any form of linguistic, religious or ethnic diversity has become more commonplace. Over the past few decades Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, Indonesia and the nations of the former East Bloc have constricted their concept of national identity. In Malaysia, East Africa and even the province of Quebec preferential policies have led successful minorities such as Jews, Armenians, Coptic Christians Indians and Chinese to find homes in more welcoming places, often in the U.S.

In recent decades Europe has received as many immigrants as the U.S., but it has proved far less able to absorb them. The roughly 20 million Muslims who live in Europe remain marginalized. In Europe, notably in France, unemployment among immigrants--particularly those from Muslim countries--is often at least twice that of the native born; in Britain as well Muslims are far more likely to be out of the workforce than either Christians or Hindus."
http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/20/immigration-history-economics-columnists-joel-kotkin.html

Immigration and Arizona's Law

I have a hard time getting upset about a state law that is essentially the same as a federal law - sure, the federal law is retarded, but what reason is there to make a 'federal case' about a state law that mirrors a federal law?  In most cases, the furror is more about advancing one party's goals rather than any real outrage.  The libertarians are the only ones whom I would put in a separate category - at least they are consistent in opposing both levels of state intervention into the freely chosen actions of what should be free business men and women, and the workers who choose to be employed by them.

I like this excerpt:
"Immigrant scientists, entrepreneurs and laborers bring innovation, dedication and good old-fashioned hard work to bear on improving their own lives and the lives of others around them. Removing restrictions on the movement of labor—which primarily serve to protect labor unions and assuage nativists—would be an enormous boon to the national economy.

Arizona's law is popular partly because Arizonans fear an illegal immigrant crime wave. But crime rates in Arizona are at historic lows. According to the state Bureau of Justice, violent crime rates in 2008 (the latest year for which data are available) were lower than any point since 1976. Property crime rates have declined even more steeply, with 2008 figures lower than at any point since 1966. It is a myth, then, that illegal immigrants bring a wave of crime in their wake."
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704684604575381561053396180-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwNzEyNDcyWj.html

Going to El Paso?

By conventional wisdom, El Paso, Texas should be one of the scariest cities in America. In 2007,the city's poverty rate was a shade over 27 percent, more than twice the national average. Median household income was $35,600, well below the national average of $48,000. El Paso is three-quarters Hispanic, and more than a quarter of its residents are foreign-born. Given that it's nearly impossible for low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States legitimately, it's safe to say that a significant percentage of El Paso's foreign-born population is living here illegally.

El Paso also has some of the laxer gun control policies of any non-Texan big city in the country, mostly due to gun-friendly state law. And famously, El Paso sits just over the Rio Grande from one of the most violent cities in the western hemisphere, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, home to a staggering 2,500 homicides in the last 18 months alone. A city of illegal immigrants with easy access to guns, just across the river from a metropolis ripped apart by brutal drug war violence. Should be a bloodbath, right?

Here's the surprise: There were just 18 murders in El Paso last year, in a city of 736,000 people. To compare, Baltimore, with 637,000 residents, had 234 killings. In fact, since the beginning of 2008, there were nearly as many El Pasoans murdered while visiting Juarez (20) than there were murdered in their home town (23).

El Paso is among the safest big cities in America. For the better part of the last decade, only Honolulu has had a lower violent crime rate (El Paso slipped to third last year, behind New York). Men's Healthmagazine recently ranked El Paso the second "happiest" city in America, right after Laredo, Texas—another border town, where the Hispanic population is approaching 95 percent.

So how has this city of poor immigrants become such an anomaly? Actually, it may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safebecause of them.
http://reason.com/archives/2009/07/06/the-el-paso-miracle

Immigration - 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (link follows)
The absence of a way to enter the United States legally to work has contributed to more than 4,000 men, women, and children dying while attempting to cross to America since 1998. Alarmingly, immigrant deaths increased in 2009 at a time when illegal entry fell significantly. This death toll - an average of about one person a day - has occurred in the context of great pressure from Congress and executive branch officials to "control the border." The loss of life will almost certainly continue unless more paths are open to work legally in the United States. The only plausible way to eliminate immigrant deaths at the border, as well as reduce illegal immigration in the long term, is to institute a new program of temporary visas or portable work permits for foreign workers. Strong evidence exists that the current "enforcement-only" policy has strengthened criminal gangs, providing a profitable line of business for Mexican criminal enterprises. If Mexican and Central American workers could come to America on a legal visa or work permit they would have no need to employ the services of a coyote or criminal enterprise. (The research for this paper was funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.)
http://www.nfap.com/pdf/0505brief-death-at-border.pdf

Immigrants Footing Their Own Bill?

Heritage research indicates uneducated immigrants take a significant drain on the economy via the entitlement programs. This paints a different picture. The complexity builds!

"The fact that illegal immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Yet, nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation's hospitals, schools and welfare programs — consuming services that they don't pay for.

In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education."

"What's more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers — that the Social Security administration stashes in the "earnings suspense file" — added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year.

Beyond federal taxes, all illegals automatically pay state sales taxes that contribute toward the upkeep of public facilities such as roads that they use, and property taxes through their rent that contribute toward the schooling of their children. The non-partisan National Research Council found that when the taxes paid by the children of low-skilled immigrant families � most of whom are illegal — are factored in, they contribute on average $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume."
http://reason.org/news/show/illegal-immigrants-are-paying

Immigration - The Issues

Do you see immigrants this way?
"Industrious self-starters who come to the United States to find work, create new wealth, and improve their lives are not a menace or a threat. They are an asset. No state seeks to drive out hard-working newcomers from New Mexico or Indiana; why should hard-working newcomers from Old Mexico or India be treated any differently? To say that they cross the border illegally only begs the question. Why should it be illegal for any person to come to the United States, assuming his intentions are peaceful and he is not likely to become a public charge or health risk?"
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/05/09/law_and_disorder/
This author notes that the 'real' problem is a result of the drug war vice the immigration restrictions:
"The organized-crime epidemic in Latin America, spawned by a U.S. drug policy more than four decades in the making, seems to be leeching into American cities. Powerful underworld networks supplying gringo drug users are becoming increasingly bold about expanding their businesses. In 2008, U.S. officials said that Mexican drug cartels were serving their customers in 195 American cities."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703338004575229913566531720.html
Dr. B's summary is here, and is where I purloined all these rich links.
http://cafehayek.com/2010/05/some-immigration-links-3.html

My econ professor sees the matter as one of collectively punishing large groups, which essentially victimizes the 'not guilty' in a blind effort to target the guilty:
"I wish I could say that the side I'm on has no collectivist thinking. But I can't. Many people have responded to the law, not by holding accountable and protesting the individual legislators who voted for it and the Arizonans who favor it, but by calling for a boycott of Arizona. Boycotts are unlikely to be effective but, even if they were effective, they would tend to penalize the wrong people. They're like sanctions. They don't single out the specific people who did something the boycotters object to. Instead, they treat Arizonans as one undifferentiated mass."
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/05/arizona_immigra.html
This issue illustrates federal policy failures on all levels - immigration, drug war, and social safety nets. It likely will never be solved due to the resulting complexities and unintended negative consequences, combined with most folks' fear of those 'not like me' which is in my view a constant in the human condition.

83% of homicide warrants in AZ

83% of homicide warrants in Phoenix, AZ are issued for illegal aliens

That means we should do what?  Keep pretending we can close the borders?