Just remember that Martha’s Vinyard had 50 illegal immigrants and they were gone in 48 hours by military evacuation.
The left believes strongly in the morality of open borders, and equally strongly that illegal immigrants need to be quarantined in poor neighborhoods—far away from their lily white progressive enclaves.
I think it's currently impossible for the Democratic Party to do anything about our immigration problem, the Democratic Party is the problem.
Currently Trump and the Republicans are trying to fix what we mostly did. To be credible we should try to assist Republicans, admit that we made a horrible mistake, apologize to all the workers both American and illegal affected, and do all we can to assist in fixing things.
There is a $2,600 stipend for those who self deport. Per person. For a family of four that's $10,400. I bought land and built a fourplex in the third world with $6,000. I'd think ten thousand is more than enough for many to get a new start.
This essay is an exquisitely reasoned and thoroughly practical plea to the Democratic Party to admit to its past failures (however well-intended some may have been) and embrace a coherent approach to the entire immigration system. The comments also contribute earnest and valuable "opinion points". TLP performs a great service with this piece. Rick Taft
Democrats would control Congress and the White House come 2029 if they followed the recommendations in this essay. Here's the key sentence: "Given sufficient political will, closing loopholes and stiffening enforcement would cost just over $600 million over the next five years under Kobach’s proposal compared to Trump’s 2025 $85 billion ICE budget. Illegal immigration by economic migrants would drastically decline in the long term, and large numbers of recent arrivals would self-deport for lack of employment options."
ICE should focus on the criminal aliens; state and local governments should cooperate with ICE detainers. Then handle illegal immigration the German way: heavy fines for employers that hire illegal workers along with prison time for executives as an added deterrent. But employer-based immigration enforcement won't happen for these reasons: (1) The cheap labor wing of the GOP - including Trump - opposes such enforcement (2) The dominant faction of the Democratic party that controls nominating processes is pro-open borders - they want the illegal immigrants as future citizens/voters and as numbers to be included in the 2030 census that determines apportionment of seats in the U.S. House.
What a great article. What I respect most about this piece is the thinking behind it. You can tell this wasn’t written from a distance. It reflects real exposure to how the system actually operates and how people respond to incentives, not how we wish they would. That experience is translated into a framework that anticipates unintended consequences instead of reacting to them. You don’t see this kind of disciplined, system-level reasoning very often, and it shows.
Agreed, at least once you get past the opening polemics. Great analysis of lack of enforcement on employers. It’s also interesting to note that enforcement was fairly high under Obama.
I think Obama did represent the tail end of the pro-worker populist left. I suspect he was particularly interested in protecting black workers from competing with illegal immigrants who would underbid their labor. But then the Democratic Party radicalized beyond this to open borders.
Ok I’ll give it another shot. The unhinged rhetoric (execution, gestapo, etc.) in the first few paragraphs put me off and I stopped reading. Obama’s first term was solidly old school pro-worker Democrat. He along with the rest of the party went nuts after he was reelected.
If you’re trying to appeal to voters outside your small tent, the first paragraph isn’t the way to go. How ironic, let’s make the party better. Oh but first, we need another butt head line about Trump. Hint: Try posting something that doesn’t mention Trump. Then I will know you are actually trying to become relevant winners again.
I don’t think it’s valid to conclude that illegals who cannot find a job due to e-verify enforcement will then self-deport.
There are millions of illegals already here, and have been for a long time. They will not give up easily and just leave. The more likely outcome is a massive increase in homeless illegals, with the predictable response that they must be given public aid to support them.
Strict enforcement of e-verify will not solve the issue of the millions who are already here.
While it’s important to crack down on employer use of illegal immigrants as well as having humane deportations, it won’t necessarily lead to a big increase in employment of citizens in industries that now have a lot of illegal immigrants. Agriculture, for one, employs only one percent of the workforce, and that percentage was declining for decades before NAFTA due to automation. Tighter labor markets would probably lead to more automation in a lot of sectors (which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, though we’d need other ways to increase blue collar employment).
Greater public employment (as in civil servants, not contractors) would be a good way to employ a lot of US citizens in tech fields who now compete with H1Bs. Anyone who’s worked in government knows how technologically backward a lot of agencies are. Part of a post-DOGE improvement of government efficiency would be hiring lots of citizen STEM workers for cyber security, updating websites and software, and generally making government run faster. We could speed up the hiring process by making it easier to get clearances.
We can certainly improve H1B, say by reducing visas to two or three years instead of six and reducing or eliminating the exceptions to the 85,000 person cap. But a lot of employers will likely try to hire overseas workers instead, something relatively small companies are doing already:
When the government hires its own technology people, that’s is where $500, not amended up for inflation, toilet sits for its planes. The function of government is to set the goals let the private sector use the more efficient system they have at lower costs and not costs for failed ideas, oversee the goals to
see if they being met, make sure the final product is the right product. Why limit the innovated powers of the country by letting only government employees use limited brain power to come up with the technical answers.
This is normally a place of reasonable differing opinion, but "apparent execution of Mr. Pretti" is not reasonable. An armed Protester interacted with ICE, without ever identifying himself as utilizing conceal carry. His death is a tragedy, not an execution.
Abolishing ICE is Open Borders, without the disturbing Texas border video. Between 750 million and 1 billion would relocate to US, if allowed to do so. Without interior enforcement, the US is the globe's Home Base. Any non criminally violent world resident, that touches US soil can stay forever. No waiting, no vetting, no valid asylum claim or economic self sufficiency, necessary.
"Employer demand" is a kinder, gentler version of the "Who will pick the Cotton"? The living standards of non college educated US workers have been gutted by decades of mass migration and outsourcing, while providing employers with, literal, free money. Now even highly educated STEM workers face culling via H1B visas.
The game isn't just rigged, it ended. The aftermath leaves US workers competing with people perfectly willing to accept 3rd world wages, working and living conditions in the modern US. Back to the Future, without the laughs.
Meanwhile, migrants are exploited, in a more palatable version of indentured servitude. The nations from which they hail are strip mined of human capital. They become husks, that can never develop, often destined for narco terror rule.
"Employer Demand"" is most often matched with the refrain "We Will Starve". Illegal immigration is not utilized in US grain production. It is not needed. Grain farmers automated decades ago. Machinery and tech allow farmers to vastly expand acreage, with fewer bodies.
Produce growers could do the same, but refuse. It is cheaper to exploit workers, while dumping labor costs on taxpayers, via a near 60% use rate for US welfare programs. All before the staggering cost of their healthcare.
All Left mass migration discussions are predicated on "we need more". This flys in the face of the coming AI revolution and Western Europe's experience. Right leaning political parties that were jokes 10 short years ago, are poised to take power in England, Germany and France.
Their revered safety net and healthcare are crumbling under the cost of absorbing non economically self sufficient migrants, before consideration of the crime that accompanies them. Mass migration has more destabilized Europe, than at any time since 1946.
At home or abroad, the ultimate mass migration goal is always Progressive single party rule. Conservative governance is a Western invention. With a few exceptions, it is nearly impossible for Conservatives to win elections when the percentage of foreign born residents reaches a tipping point. Dems know that. That is why they purposefully dissolved the border and equate mass migration with orderly, limited immigration.
Reps have a very short window. Deportations cost $14K each. Offer non criminal migrants a $10K check to humanely self repatriate, while explaining tax payer subsidies will soon end. After mass voluntarily repatriation, a humane designation for the undocumented here for longer than a decade, without criminality or tax payer dependency, can be reached.
Penalties for hiring the undocumented should be more harsh. The current H1B workers minimum wage of $60K, should rise to $180K, with fewer visas available. Future immigration should be a version of MLB. We call up a player when a specific need exists, after extensive vetting.
Mike Roe may beg to differ with some of your claims and future projections. Look him up. He is entertaining while providing essential education to be a tradesman/woman.
Very familiar with Mr. Rowe, but also lived thru the First tech revolution where the internet made accountants more productive, and then nearly obsolete.
Moreover, while Blue Collar professions are certainly viable options, probably less so for graduated engineers sitting on $240K of student debt, after years of difficult higher math study.
Finally, it seems unlikely the mass importation of people, often with 5th and 8th grade educations, and lacking English skills are the answer to filling complicated Blue Collar jobs. Have noticed the manuals utilized for my AC and dishwasher repair. They undoubtedly require, at a minimum, a 12 grade education, before lengthy training and fluent English.
Thanks for correcting the spelling of Rowe’s last name.
If there are no jobs for one’s major, or minor, the degrees are basically useless. Trained tradespeople have one of the best guarnatees of a job when finished with their job specific training. What ever they call the lowest two generations, the males have already made the decision college isn’t for them. Especially for white males. Unions have no incentive to educate illegals to take members jobs. They don’t teach talking and reading English. Illegal immigrants don’t figure into this scenario. Neither do H1B(?) visas.
I’ll add that few if any Big Tech business require a degree. It’s cheaper, you get ready to work without conastant supervision empolyees when OJT is completed, more proficient being taught by the business that hired them. They can educate themselves into pormotions. Education usually paied for or supplied by those who they work for.
I appreciate your attention to addressing the needs of the working class men. In addition, one of the key constituents of the Democrat party are those not in the work force, for various reasons.
“Young men in the work force” has collapsed in the post WW2 era, according to ChapGPT.
Collapse of Prime-Age Male Participation (25–54)
This is the part that surprised economists.
• ~97% participation 1950s–60s:
• ~88–89% Today
This is the age group of probably the majority of immigrants. What is or should be the party plan to; see that they don’t take themselves or be pushed out of the workforce as a growing number of native born American men have?
Employment by younger men is starting to go up as they realize, a job in the trades is lucrative with no student loans to pay back. Hundreds of thousands of jobs need filling. Many times paid for or actually using OJT, while earning during your training.
Just remember that Martha’s Vinyard had 50 illegal immigrants and they were gone in 48 hours by military evacuation.
The left believes strongly in the morality of open borders, and equally strongly that illegal immigrants need to be quarantined in poor neighborhoods—far away from their lily white progressive enclaves.
I think it's currently impossible for the Democratic Party to do anything about our immigration problem, the Democratic Party is the problem.
Currently Trump and the Republicans are trying to fix what we mostly did. To be credible we should try to assist Republicans, admit that we made a horrible mistake, apologize to all the workers both American and illegal affected, and do all we can to assist in fixing things.
There is a $2,600 stipend for those who self deport. Per person. For a family of four that's $10,400. I bought land and built a fourplex in the third world with $6,000. I'd think ten thousand is more than enough for many to get a new start.
This essay is an exquisitely reasoned and thoroughly practical plea to the Democratic Party to admit to its past failures (however well-intended some may have been) and embrace a coherent approach to the entire immigration system. The comments also contribute earnest and valuable "opinion points". TLP performs a great service with this piece. Rick Taft
Democrats would control Congress and the White House come 2029 if they followed the recommendations in this essay. Here's the key sentence: "Given sufficient political will, closing loopholes and stiffening enforcement would cost just over $600 million over the next five years under Kobach’s proposal compared to Trump’s 2025 $85 billion ICE budget. Illegal immigration by economic migrants would drastically decline in the long term, and large numbers of recent arrivals would self-deport for lack of employment options."
ICE should focus on the criminal aliens; state and local governments should cooperate with ICE detainers. Then handle illegal immigration the German way: heavy fines for employers that hire illegal workers along with prison time for executives as an added deterrent. But employer-based immigration enforcement won't happen for these reasons: (1) The cheap labor wing of the GOP - including Trump - opposes such enforcement (2) The dominant faction of the Democratic party that controls nominating processes is pro-open borders - they want the illegal immigrants as future citizens/voters and as numbers to be included in the 2030 census that determines apportionment of seats in the U.S. House.
What a great article. What I respect most about this piece is the thinking behind it. You can tell this wasn’t written from a distance. It reflects real exposure to how the system actually operates and how people respond to incentives, not how we wish they would. That experience is translated into a framework that anticipates unintended consequences instead of reacting to them. You don’t see this kind of disciplined, system-level reasoning very often, and it shows.
Agreed, at least once you get past the opening polemics. Great analysis of lack of enforcement on employers. It’s also interesting to note that enforcement was fairly high under Obama.
I think Obama did represent the tail end of the pro-worker populist left. I suspect he was particularly interested in protecting black workers from competing with illegal immigrants who would underbid their labor. But then the Democratic Party radicalized beyond this to open borders.
I basically wrote exactly that a few months ago. https://open.substack.com/pub/theliberalpatriot/p/why-the-working-class-preferred-obama?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4tg0es
Ok I’ll give it another shot. The unhinged rhetoric (execution, gestapo, etc.) in the first few paragraphs put me off and I stopped reading. Obama’s first term was solidly old school pro-worker Democrat. He along with the rest of the party went nuts after he was reelected.
Thank you, brother!
"apparent execution" - quit reading
If you’re trying to appeal to voters outside your small tent, the first paragraph isn’t the way to go. How ironic, let’s make the party better. Oh but first, we need another butt head line about Trump. Hint: Try posting something that doesn’t mention Trump. Then I will know you are actually trying to become relevant winners again.
I quit reading after "execution."
I don’t think it’s valid to conclude that illegals who cannot find a job due to e-verify enforcement will then self-deport.
There are millions of illegals already here, and have been for a long time. They will not give up easily and just leave. The more likely outcome is a massive increase in homeless illegals, with the predictable response that they must be given public aid to support them.
Strict enforcement of e-verify will not solve the issue of the millions who are already here.
Especially with states like CA giving them welfare.
While it’s important to crack down on employer use of illegal immigrants as well as having humane deportations, it won’t necessarily lead to a big increase in employment of citizens in industries that now have a lot of illegal immigrants. Agriculture, for one, employs only one percent of the workforce, and that percentage was declining for decades before NAFTA due to automation. Tighter labor markets would probably lead to more automation in a lot of sectors (which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, though we’d need other ways to increase blue collar employment).
Greater public employment (as in civil servants, not contractors) would be a good way to employ a lot of US citizens in tech fields who now compete with H1Bs. Anyone who’s worked in government knows how technologically backward a lot of agencies are. Part of a post-DOGE improvement of government efficiency would be hiring lots of citizen STEM workers for cyber security, updating websites and software, and generally making government run faster. We could speed up the hiring process by making it easier to get clearances.
We can certainly improve H1B, say by reducing visas to two or three years instead of six and reducing or eliminating the exceptions to the 85,000 person cap. But a lot of employers will likely try to hire overseas workers instead, something relatively small companies are doing already:
https://www.newsweek.com/what-know-about-h-1b-program-pros-cons-hiring-alternatives-2013206
When the government hires its own technology people, that’s is where $500, not amended up for inflation, toilet sits for its planes. The function of government is to set the goals let the private sector use the more efficient system they have at lower costs and not costs for failed ideas, oversee the goals to
see if they being met, make sure the final product is the right product. Why limit the innovated powers of the country by letting only government employees use limited brain power to come up with the technical answers.
This is normally a place of reasonable differing opinion, but "apparent execution of Mr. Pretti" is not reasonable. An armed Protester interacted with ICE, without ever identifying himself as utilizing conceal carry. His death is a tragedy, not an execution.
Abolishing ICE is Open Borders, without the disturbing Texas border video. Between 750 million and 1 billion would relocate to US, if allowed to do so. Without interior enforcement, the US is the globe's Home Base. Any non criminally violent world resident, that touches US soil can stay forever. No waiting, no vetting, no valid asylum claim or economic self sufficiency, necessary.
"Employer demand" is a kinder, gentler version of the "Who will pick the Cotton"? The living standards of non college educated US workers have been gutted by decades of mass migration and outsourcing, while providing employers with, literal, free money. Now even highly educated STEM workers face culling via H1B visas.
The game isn't just rigged, it ended. The aftermath leaves US workers competing with people perfectly willing to accept 3rd world wages, working and living conditions in the modern US. Back to the Future, without the laughs.
Meanwhile, migrants are exploited, in a more palatable version of indentured servitude. The nations from which they hail are strip mined of human capital. They become husks, that can never develop, often destined for narco terror rule.
"Employer Demand"" is most often matched with the refrain "We Will Starve". Illegal immigration is not utilized in US grain production. It is not needed. Grain farmers automated decades ago. Machinery and tech allow farmers to vastly expand acreage, with fewer bodies.
Produce growers could do the same, but refuse. It is cheaper to exploit workers, while dumping labor costs on taxpayers, via a near 60% use rate for US welfare programs. All before the staggering cost of their healthcare.
All Left mass migration discussions are predicated on "we need more". This flys in the face of the coming AI revolution and Western Europe's experience. Right leaning political parties that were jokes 10 short years ago, are poised to take power in England, Germany and France.
Their revered safety net and healthcare are crumbling under the cost of absorbing non economically self sufficient migrants, before consideration of the crime that accompanies them. Mass migration has more destabilized Europe, than at any time since 1946.
At home or abroad, the ultimate mass migration goal is always Progressive single party rule. Conservative governance is a Western invention. With a few exceptions, it is nearly impossible for Conservatives to win elections when the percentage of foreign born residents reaches a tipping point. Dems know that. That is why they purposefully dissolved the border and equate mass migration with orderly, limited immigration.
Reps have a very short window. Deportations cost $14K each. Offer non criminal migrants a $10K check to humanely self repatriate, while explaining tax payer subsidies will soon end. After mass voluntarily repatriation, a humane designation for the undocumented here for longer than a decade, without criminality or tax payer dependency, can be reached.
Penalties for hiring the undocumented should be more harsh. The current H1B workers minimum wage of $60K, should rise to $180K, with fewer visas available. Future immigration should be a version of MLB. We call up a player when a specific need exists, after extensive vetting.
Mike Roe may beg to differ with some of your claims and future projections. Look him up. He is entertaining while providing essential education to be a tradesman/woman.
Very familiar with Mr. Rowe, but also lived thru the First tech revolution where the internet made accountants more productive, and then nearly obsolete.
Moreover, while Blue Collar professions are certainly viable options, probably less so for graduated engineers sitting on $240K of student debt, after years of difficult higher math study.
Finally, it seems unlikely the mass importation of people, often with 5th and 8th grade educations, and lacking English skills are the answer to filling complicated Blue Collar jobs. Have noticed the manuals utilized for my AC and dishwasher repair. They undoubtedly require, at a minimum, a 12 grade education, before lengthy training and fluent English.
Thanks for correcting the spelling of Rowe’s last name.
If there are no jobs for one’s major, or minor, the degrees are basically useless. Trained tradespeople have one of the best guarnatees of a job when finished with their job specific training. What ever they call the lowest two generations, the males have already made the decision college isn’t for them. Especially for white males. Unions have no incentive to educate illegals to take members jobs. They don’t teach talking and reading English. Illegal immigrants don’t figure into this scenario. Neither do H1B(?) visas.
I’ll add that few if any Big Tech business require a degree. It’s cheaper, you get ready to work without conastant supervision empolyees when OJT is completed, more proficient being taught by the business that hired them. They can educate themselves into pormotions. Education usually paied for or supplied by those who they work for.
I appreciate your attention to addressing the needs of the working class men. In addition, one of the key constituents of the Democrat party are those not in the work force, for various reasons.
“Young men in the work force” has collapsed in the post WW2 era, according to ChapGPT.
Collapse of Prime-Age Male Participation (25–54)
This is the part that surprised economists.
• ~97% participation 1950s–60s:
• ~88–89% Today
This is the age group of probably the majority of immigrants. What is or should be the party plan to; see that they don’t take themselves or be pushed out of the workforce as a growing number of native born American men have?
Employment by younger men is starting to go up as they realize, a job in the trades is lucrative with no student loans to pay back. Hundreds of thousands of jobs need filling. Many times paid for or actually using OJT, while earning during your training.