Summary
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that Trump’s mass deportation policy could lead to labor shortages and higher grocery prices.
Experts say agriculture, construction, and healthcare will be hardest hit, with farm output losses estimated between $30 and $60 billion.
Deportations could cost the U.S. economy up to $88 billion annually.
AOC argued that immigrant labor is vital to economic stability, urging Congress to pursue immigration reform.
I understand higher food prices is rough for the general public, but I’m struggling to find a reason we shouldnt deport illegal immigrants. I’m concerned that illegal immigrant labor is akin to H1b or prison labor, where the worker has diminished rights and is abused more than other groups.
Why are democrats or people in general in favor of illegal immigration?
Did it occur to you that even with the diminished rights and abuse, they still chose to immigrate? And that they still wish to stay?
You’re not protecting them by deporting them. If you want to protect them and help the economy, give them a path to citizenship so that they can continue to work essential jobs while receiving the labor protections of citizens that - oh, whoops. Those protections are being threatened too. Almost like the people doing the deportations have no interest in protecting people and are actively harming them.
I understand illegal immigration benefits the immigrants, thats a ridiculous point to feel the need to make. I’m asking why as a country, a state, or a community anyone would want illegal immigration. Legal immigrants are great, no problem with them.
Right now people are freaking out because Trump has doubled arrests for illegal immigrants. Okay, so why’s that bad? People bring up higher prices, and my response is that I dont want low prices if it depends on slave labor. How is the price of goods more important than how we treat other people?
If those illegal immigrants could come her legally they would, they dont prefer breaking laws. Just because they can’t make it here legally does not mean they are entitled to be here anyways. Americans wouldnt promote illegal immigration to another country, so why would they promote it tk their own?
Really?
Are you concerned about them or not? If you’re concerned about their quality of life, we should talk about how their quality of life here is better than it will be if they are deported. If you’re not concerned about their quality of life, then don’t pretend to be concerned and then change the subject when challenged on that concern.
I think you’re already there but the illegal immigrants are here because corporations benefit from the desperate cheap labor. Both parties largely turn a blind eye to the trickle and talk and talk about what to do. I’ve yet to see a proposal where corporations or their leadership face consequences if they’re found to be employing illegal immigrants.
I totally agree with your take on how deportations don’t help.
To play both sides, a lot of immigrants choose to work here for low wages in order to send money back to their families from their home country. They endure horrible conditions and don’t expect much social mobility. Their families usually come from countries hurt by neo capitalism so I get why rekorse criticizes their role as being morally dubious for the citizens of the host country.
I don’t disagree with you, and I think that’s why people call for immigration reform. We need to look at what we want to do about immigration as a nation.
One thing I’ve never understood from democrats perspective is that there is a reason to control how many people can immigrate to ensure the country can support those people.
What I’ve never understood about Republicans is why go after the immigrants and not the companies hiring their labor. Make the penalties brutal for hiring illegal immigrants and youll solve many issues with immigration.
It does seem like both parties go to far on either side with it, when you put it that way.
Are you specifically concerned about illegal immigration, or just immigration in general? Because if it’s the former, that’s a silly distinction because the government (we the people, aka Elon Musk) decides what is illegal or not. If the next wave of politicians decides we should have actually open borders, then there would be no such thing as “illegal immigration”.
Do you have specific examples in mind where immigrants are exploited? If you do, look at those examples and ask yourself: “could we pass laws to protect these people from abuse?”, and you’ll find that the answer is obviously yes.
Maybe your definition of “abuse” is that they need to work harder to earn less? Well, that’s the society we live in. Capitalism has its problems, but it has worked good enough for us for the past 248 years. For the immigrant, US minimum wage is likely far better than whatever they received in their home country, and I suspect most would happily take that deal. I think that’s what they’d call “the American dream”, as their children will be able to go to school and have a better future than they did.
…If your issue is with immigration in general, then I don’t know what to tell you. That’s entirely opinion based, and nobody knows what the correct answer is (despite what they might claim). 100% open borders has risks, 100% closed borders has risks.
I guess I’m just silly for thinking breaking laws to get into a country is a bad thing.
Bro did all the thinking for you and you still can’t grasp it smh
Right, he made the great point that maybe we could pass laws to protect people we dont even know are in the country. That makes a lot of sense. Illegal immigrants are a protected class now!
I’m frustrated that everything trump does gets misrepresented to the point where people are just shouting random fears into the void. Apologies for refusing to jump to conclusions like the rest of the circle-jerkers on this platform.
I am opposed to quite a lot of what trump does but kicking people out of the country who didnt arrive legally isn’t one of them, because I simply can’t think of a reason why people who broke into the country deserve the right to stay.
You lack empathy. And you need to understand that you are only a victim here for being a sociopath, not for simply discussing trumps actions.
And you lack a coherent response, unless you think name-calling is effective. Good thing all of you taught my why I was wrong.
You’re not engaging in any good faith arguing here. I made a good faith argument that your focus on the “illegal” label is arbitrary and pointless, and even invited a discussion on immigration in general, but instead you came back with some terrible takes and snark. I can’t tell if you’re a troll or a bot.
Is that why you came here? To have people teach you why you’re wrong? Because if you already know you’re wrong, why are you spending so much effort arguing against people telling you what you already know? It’s Saturday dude, spend it with friends and family, not bitterly debating politics with strangers on the internet.
So you don’t care about immigration, you only care about the “illegal” aspect of it? Does that mean you’re pro-immigration reform, so that more people can immigrate to the US without “breaking laws”?
I have no issue with people immigrating legally.
So, you believe in imaginary lines drawn on maps that allow people to justify the persecution of others simply because they walked a few feet in a specific direction?
In some contexts yes.
Good to know! I also hate illegal immigration, which is why, at least on this issue, I’m voting for democrats for the foreseeable future. The republican party is hell bent on increasing the amount of illegal immigrantion in this country, and I just can’t support that. Of course, the dems would never go so far as to eliminate illegal immigration completely (by adopting open borders), but I’m confident they’re at least more open to finding a middle ground that makes most people happy.
Could you give more detail on why the republicans are going to increase it? Are they doing it on purpose?
I’m not going to keep explaining it to you. If you still don’t get it, try asking ChatGPT to summarize this thread for you.
I can’t speak for others, but I learned a few years ago that the immigration process is difficult and expensive. Trump made this significantly worse during his first term.
We wouldn’t have so much illegal immigration if the barriers weren’t so high.
Multiple studies have shown that illegal immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than citizens, and have a positive economic benefit to the country. Shouldn’t the question be why you don’t want them here? Shouldn’t you just want reform to get them documented and then move on with your life instead of supporting these hateful policies?
In the hope they become legal, productive members of society. Would that not help all parties involved?
Not when you’ve got over 350 million people and the world’s most expensive health care.
And when you have one of the largest land masses on the planet, and some of the most valuable natural resources, and a declining birth rate and increasing childhood mortality, and the cost of your health care is entirely caused by artificial scarcity… hm. Maybe the problem isn’t immigrants.
Oh the problem certainly isn’t immigrants, I’m not at all suggesting that. I’m saying that the US has so many issues that mass immigration will never help when you can’t even take care of the people who are already there.
That’s the thing, though. You can take care of the people already here. There is more than enough wealth, natural resources, land, food, energy… you name it, we have more than enough of it and can make more than enough of it. The point is the people in power choose not to. One or one million, immigrants will not take away anything from the lives of citizens that hasn’t already been taken away.
If you could wave a magic wand and deport every last immigrant, how would that take care of the citizens here? Crime would go down? No, statistically they commit less crimes per capita. Taxes would go down? No, as a group they pay far more in taxes than they could possibly take back in government spending.
The immense amount of wealth being hoarded by the powerful is already not being spent on improving people’s lives, and every last dime of it will continue not being spent on improving people’s lives.
You won’t get another slice of the pie just because someone leaves. You won’t end up with more value to be shared among less people… you will just end up with less people. People whose absence will actually make everything cost more, meaning the slice of the pie you do already hold will be worth less than before.
I agree. I’m not for deportation, I’m for immigration. I’m simply saying that in the current state, the US does not need more people.
… Then you’re for immigration, but also oppose immigration to the United States right now? Presumably because of economic reasons? That’s just being against immigration with extra qualifiers.
The whole point is that neither immigration nor deportation - more immigrants coming in or more immigrants leaving - neither will result in any material change to the problems you have with the nation’s current state. Wave a magic wand and deport them all, healthcare won’t be cheaper the next day. Wave a magic wand and lock the southern border from coast to coast and your food won’t be cheaper either.
Immigration is not causing any of the significant and systemic problems that the United States is currently facing, and so there’s no sense in… what, exactly?
Waiting for the problems to get better before you would accept more immigrants? Some utopian moment in time when you would actually be for immigration in the United States? What would that time look like to you, and why would current or future immigration stand in the way of reaching that point?
Wow, you’re very strongly opinionated.
At the end of the day, I don’t really care, I was just expressing a thought. If you think it’s a great idea to continuously bring people into a country that struggles to care for its population currently, go hard. Make a petition, I’ll sign it for you.
Country full huh?
I’d say over populated in regard to this discussion.