(03-04-2018 10:26 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 10:21 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 10:20 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 10:17 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(03-04-2018 07:02 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  "Engineers or doctors" was meant as a figure of speech. I'd be happy with lawyers--and dentists and others. Willingness to assimilate should be mandatory, we agree there. But that is hard to measure abstractly before they get here. I'm fine with refugees, sorry if I did not make that clear. Mainly I would seek to increase the number of legal immigrants and decrease the number of illegals.

Good poetry does not always make good policy.

And this is what frustrates me about Trump at the moment. I think the majority of both sides of the aisle generally agree on the big picture of immigration - and have some disagreements on the finer details. There are some on both ends of the spectrum that vary greatly, and prefer basically very strict migration or very open migration, but the middle, say, 75%, are in this boat.

But when Trump makes comments about not wanting people from shithole countries, it raises hackles on the left because it obviously isn’t a comment that considers a person’s worth or situation, just country of origin. And when those hackles are raised, it results in a polarization and a digging in on both sides by both tribes. And that isn’t a constructive comment with regards to actually tackling our immigration issues. And all we end up doing is either attacking Trump for his classless comment, or defending him as not being a racist for said comment.

I fall very closely in with Big on immigration. I want people who want to assimilate in the sense of becoming part of the community, but as you mention, that is hard to measure. And I have a small preference for refugees over professionals who want to immigrate. But that’s why I wouldn’t prefer to increase the amount of legal immigrants who can enter the country. No immigrant is stealing jobs from Americans, so let’s welcome in those who want to be productive members of our community.

In unlimited numbers, without vetting?

Huh?

If the numbers are limited, choices must be made. How do you make them?

If you do do get, how do you which ones want to be productive members of the community, and are able to do so. How do you know which ones want to assimilate?

And this is why I said many agree on big picture views, but not the details.

I would keep refugees and immigrants separate. For refugees, I believe our current system is sufficient for both vetting and resettlement. There is already a fairly robust vetting process to help reduce the chance of people who want to take advantage of the system in ways that go against our interests from entering our country. But in 2016, the ceiling for entrants was only 85,000 people, so I would be happy to increase that number and provide extra funding to proportionally increase support staff (https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.o...d-policy).

For non-refugee immigration, I’m not deadset on any policy, but if you had to choose how to select applicants for entry, I would use a combination of time of application, criminal record, questionnaires/interviews that help evaluate someone’s understanding of the US and apparent willingness to become a contributing member of the community. I’m also fine with our current policy on family immigration, which only extends to children and parents, with the only possible exception being the removal of siblings from the process. I’m also generally fine with our current employment immigration policy, which provides preferences to employees with high-level skills.

I’d like to see a change in how we handle those who basically aren’t white color workers nor refugees. Basically the type of people who fall into the current diversity lottery program. I think if we expand the amount of people who can become a citizen in this path, we reduce illegal immigration because we provide a path to citizenship for more people who basically only have a high school education, but who have a willingness to break their back. So you could basically do a similar screening process for this category of people that you do for refugees, and attempt to evaluate who they are as a person.

I honestly don’t think our current immigration policy is that broken when you look at what it is, I mainly think we just don’t do enough to allow in enough immigrants. As I said before, Americans are not losing jobs to immigrants.