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.
We have a street in liberal Portland named after Cesar Chavez. Most people don't realize that Chavez was dead-set against illegal immigration, realizing it drove down wages for legal immigrants.
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
The truth may well be that the Dems don’t regard the Biden mass migration as a failure since its real purpose may have been to replenish the shrinking population of major blue states with unauthorized immigrants. The immigrants didn’t need to have the vote as long as their numbers were counted for apportionment of Congressional seats, presidential electors and other government aid and development programs. Yes, even illegals count as population.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I ignored the first few paragraphs and looked at the rest. Many times the rest follows the first but not this time. His proposals are really good because they address the entire system while being true to overarching core principles.
I forced myself to plow through it. The rest definitely follows the first. He does have some solid ideas about E-verify and grasps the harm illegal immigration does to workers. Still he has hyperbolic nonsense sprinkled throughout. I certainly can’t get a handle on where he at on deportation. He seems to accept that it’s probably necessary but we can’t go about it in any fashion that might be construed as not nice. Which makes the reality next to impossible.
Maybe it makes sense as on “progressive” talking to other like minded individuals. As someone who’s a big fan of legal skills based immigration but views illegals (which includes asylum abusers) as line cutters who should be swiftly deported it mostly falls flat. I’m sure I fit his definition of a “sociopathic nationalist”, for supporting mass deportations
I read Juan’s piece as a steady-state system design, not a transition plan. He’s laying out what rules and incentives have to exist long-term so the problem doesn’t keep recreating itself.
The question of what to do with the millions already here, priorities, sequencing, deportations vs. legalization pathways, due process, capacity limits, is a separate transition problem. And I agree with you: that transition will not be easy. There are hard decisions and tradeoffs that have to be made, and if they’re handled poorly, they could absolutely undermine the steady-state system itself.
That said, for me the value of the piece is that it gets the end-state logic right. Without agreement on the steady state, any transition plan, no matter how tough or how compassionate, just recreates the same dynamics a few years down the road.
Well put. A big part of it for me is that I’m rapidly developing an exceedingly low tolerance for the hyperbolic rhetoric. Too many “useful idiots” on the left are taking it too literally, and attacking LEO’s just trying to do their jobs. Not to mention to ones going even farther and getting themselves killed resisting arrest while armed with a deadly weapon.
200,000 in his first term - it's amazing that we never talked about/even knew about this, while today it's a national obsession. Thanks for the great post!
You deserved it. Not many people actually put together a tight and wholistic proposal for a national system like this it was surprising and refreshing. Oh and I am actually a sister😀
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.
There is a LOT of under the table employment of illegals (and legals!) in construction, restaurants, and anything landscaping related. Employers/contractors prefer the lower wages and - mostly - not paying payroll taxes, workers comp, etc. Employees/contractors like the no taxes, too.
All true. This has been allowed for years. But it’s wishful thinking to imagine stopping it will lead to illegals who have built their lives around it (and the lives of their American born children) to just pick up and leave.
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:
Define “humane deportations”. What is your recommendation for deporting illegals who refuse to leave voluntarily?
H1Bs are a mixed bag. One the one hand we outsourced most of our entry level tech jobs, mostly to India, 10-20 years ago. Now we shockingly have a hard time finding senior level tech talent domestically. Hence the need for H1Bs. On the other hand we’ve made the system far too easy to exploit by making it a lottery and refunding the application fee when denied. So you have staffing agencies flooding the application system then undercutting the domestic workforce with H1B contractors who work well below market wages. If it were up to me, I’d scrap the H1B system entirely and make it easy for people who have the skills we need to get green cards. At a minimum the lottery needs to go away and H1B should not allow for contracting.
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?
Thomas Edsall had similar in the NYT today. 2028 An essay to "restore the party’s appeal to centrist working- and middle-class voters." and then he goes on to offer up ideas from elites like Neera Tanden and Robert Reich, Haidt, etc.
When a party messes up so bad they lose to not the greatest politician a little humility is required. I don't look to the people who blew it to offer up the same old slop they've had on offer forever. I don't like being told what's best for me, obviously rich elitists are clueless.
Tanden says Trump has made housing more expensive. Rents are down nationwide, I mean the price is actually going down for the 40% who do rent. What a nincompoop. An "agenda of security and opportunity". I'd prefer some raids on the construction site until everyone working there was at least a green card holder.
Every time some idiot talks of controlling the border I get sick. They want to be sure to work on those things Trump fixed with both hands behind his back.
Edsal opens up the floor to comments for those who get there during the half hour window it's possible to comment.
At a certian point, one "needs" to (really should) see the writing on the wall and realize that however sensible various solutions to this (and various other) problems might be, all this talk of what the US Democratic party "needs" to do, or "must" do is falling on deaf and blind ears with a Democratic party that either does not see this as being a problem and/or else has an entirely differant end goal, or worse yes is just reacting and has no real idea what its actual long term goal (if any) might be....
But much like the Democratic party itself, this author seems to be missing the obvious! These ideas mostly sound good in theory, though in practice some might end up more complicated. But none are even being seriously debated by congress or others at high levels of society at this point. College educated and professional class Republicans (who now include few workers in certian professions but a good chunk of all the rest) also now have views on immigration much more like other Republicans rather then like college educated Domocrats, unlike merely a decade ago.
And since there is almost not a rats chance that the Democratic party or US left will embrace these changes (nor will the GOP), we are unlikely to find out anytime soon. But the lack of a border barrior and non enforcement at the border was an issue if we are being honest. And Trump has at least largely solved that for now, while otherwise being largely terrible.
The US has been in a low grade civil war for a while now, and no solutions are currently forthcoming. Some say one side or the other has to win much more decisively first. That could be Democrats in the near future but if it is I don't frankly even see domcracy lasting much longer.
Many Dems are talking about going much further then Trump has or is but in the opposite direction as soon as they can. And then we have widespread AI Robots planned soon. We have unprecidented debt and are running on fumes. No wonder so many conservative christians have been recently comming out and just saying this is the beginning of revelation or end times!
At the end of my new book I have a seven point political platform that could easily be adopted by a future Democratic party.
Thus, instead of e-verify, I propose a biometric Social Security card as the only realistic way to enforce our immigration laws. It would serve as a form of national ID and would be necessary to show in order to get a job, open a bank account, etc..
The decline in prime age men working or looking for work is driven by the 15 to 24 group (high school and college age) who in 1980, about 75% were working or looking for work, to now returning to the pre-Covid level of about 55%.
Researchers have attributed it to a: “ higher incidence of postsecondary education attainment, self-reported disabilities or illnesses, and caretaking responsibilities. They also summarize other economic research that attributes this decline to changing industry structure, falling demand for jobs that prime-age men have traditionally held, and the opioid crisis.”
That’s an opportunity for Democrats to mitigate some of these factors, or they could just see if Trump can reverse this trend and turn more working class young men into Republicans voters.
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.
We have a street in liberal Portland named after Cesar Chavez. Most people don't realize that Chavez was dead-set against illegal immigration, realizing it drove down wages for legal immigrants.
"apparent execution" - quit reading
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
The truth may well be that the Dems don’t regard the Biden mass migration as a failure since its real purpose may have been to replenish the shrinking population of major blue states with unauthorized immigrants. The immigrants didn’t need to have the vote as long as their numbers were counted for apportionment of Congressional seats, presidential electors and other government aid and development programs. Yes, even illegals count as population.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I ignored the first few paragraphs and looked at the rest. Many times the rest follows the first but not this time. His proposals are really good because they address the entire system while being true to overarching core principles.
I forced myself to plow through it. The rest definitely follows the first. He does have some solid ideas about E-verify and grasps the harm illegal immigration does to workers. Still he has hyperbolic nonsense sprinkled throughout. I certainly can’t get a handle on where he at on deportation. He seems to accept that it’s probably necessary but we can’t go about it in any fashion that might be construed as not nice. Which makes the reality next to impossible.
Maybe it makes sense as on “progressive” talking to other like minded individuals. As someone who’s a big fan of legal skills based immigration but views illegals (which includes asylum abusers) as line cutters who should be swiftly deported it mostly falls flat. I’m sure I fit his definition of a “sociopathic nationalist”, for supporting mass deportations
I read Juan’s piece as a steady-state system design, not a transition plan. He’s laying out what rules and incentives have to exist long-term so the problem doesn’t keep recreating itself.
The question of what to do with the millions already here, priorities, sequencing, deportations vs. legalization pathways, due process, capacity limits, is a separate transition problem. And I agree with you: that transition will not be easy. There are hard decisions and tradeoffs that have to be made, and if they’re handled poorly, they could absolutely undermine the steady-state system itself.
That said, for me the value of the piece is that it gets the end-state logic right. Without agreement on the steady state, any transition plan, no matter how tough or how compassionate, just recreates the same dynamics a few years down the road.
Well put. A big part of it for me is that I’m rapidly developing an exceedingly low tolerance for the hyperbolic rhetoric. Too many “useful idiots” on the left are taking it too literally, and attacking LEO’s just trying to do their jobs. Not to mention to ones going even farther and getting themselves killed resisting arrest while armed with a deadly weapon.
200,000 in his first term - it's amazing that we never talked about/even knew about this, while today it's a national obsession. Thanks for the great post!
Thank you, brother!
You deserved it. Not many people actually put together a tight and wholistic proposal for a national system like this it was surprising and refreshing. Oh and I am actually a sister😀
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.
There is a LOT of under the table employment of illegals (and legals!) in construction, restaurants, and anything landscaping related. Employers/contractors prefer the lower wages and - mostly - not paying payroll taxes, workers comp, etc. Employees/contractors like the no taxes, too.
All true. This has been allowed for years. But it’s wishful thinking to imagine stopping it will lead to illegals who have built their lives around it (and the lives of their American born children) to just pick up and leave.
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
Define “humane deportations”. What is your recommendation for deporting illegals who refuse to leave voluntarily?
H1Bs are a mixed bag. One the one hand we outsourced most of our entry level tech jobs, mostly to India, 10-20 years ago. Now we shockingly have a hard time finding senior level tech talent domestically. Hence the need for H1Bs. On the other hand we’ve made the system far too easy to exploit by making it a lottery and refunding the application fee when denied. So you have staffing agencies flooding the application system then undercutting the domestic workforce with H1B contractors who work well below market wages. If it were up to me, I’d scrap the H1B system entirely and make it easy for people who have the skills we need to get green cards. At a minimum the lottery needs to go away and H1B should not allow for contracting.
More government workers with cadillac benefits, sweet pensions, and guaranteed lifetime employment?
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?
Thomas Edsall had similar in the NYT today. 2028 An essay to "restore the party’s appeal to centrist working- and middle-class voters." and then he goes on to offer up ideas from elites like Neera Tanden and Robert Reich, Haidt, etc.
When a party messes up so bad they lose to not the greatest politician a little humility is required. I don't look to the people who blew it to offer up the same old slop they've had on offer forever. I don't like being told what's best for me, obviously rich elitists are clueless.
Tanden says Trump has made housing more expensive. Rents are down nationwide, I mean the price is actually going down for the 40% who do rent. What a nincompoop. An "agenda of security and opportunity". I'd prefer some raids on the construction site until everyone working there was at least a green card holder.
Every time some idiot talks of controlling the border I get sick. They want to be sure to work on those things Trump fixed with both hands behind his back.
Edsal opens up the floor to comments for those who get there during the half hour window it's possible to comment.
At a certian point, one "needs" to (really should) see the writing on the wall and realize that however sensible various solutions to this (and various other) problems might be, all this talk of what the US Democratic party "needs" to do, or "must" do is falling on deaf and blind ears with a Democratic party that either does not see this as being a problem and/or else has an entirely differant end goal, or worse yes is just reacting and has no real idea what its actual long term goal (if any) might be....
But much like the Democratic party itself, this author seems to be missing the obvious! These ideas mostly sound good in theory, though in practice some might end up more complicated. But none are even being seriously debated by congress or others at high levels of society at this point. College educated and professional class Republicans (who now include few workers in certian professions but a good chunk of all the rest) also now have views on immigration much more like other Republicans rather then like college educated Domocrats, unlike merely a decade ago.
And since there is almost not a rats chance that the Democratic party or US left will embrace these changes (nor will the GOP), we are unlikely to find out anytime soon. But the lack of a border barrior and non enforcement at the border was an issue if we are being honest. And Trump has at least largely solved that for now, while otherwise being largely terrible.
The US has been in a low grade civil war for a while now, and no solutions are currently forthcoming. Some say one side or the other has to win much more decisively first. That could be Democrats in the near future but if it is I don't frankly even see domcracy lasting much longer.
Many Dems are talking about going much further then Trump has or is but in the opposite direction as soon as they can. And then we have widespread AI Robots planned soon. We have unprecidented debt and are running on fumes. No wonder so many conservative christians have been recently comming out and just saying this is the beginning of revelation or end times!
At the end of my new book I have a seven point political platform that could easily be adopted by a future Democratic party.
Thus, instead of e-verify, I propose a biometric Social Security card as the only realistic way to enforce our immigration laws. It would serve as a form of national ID and would be necessary to show in order to get a job, open a bank account, etc..
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW
I also own the domain bornagaindemocrats.com for when that day arrives.
The decline in prime age men working or looking for work is driven by the 15 to 24 group (high school and college age) who in 1980, about 75% were working or looking for work, to now returning to the pre-Covid level of about 55%.
Researchers have attributed it to a: “ higher incidence of postsecondary education attainment, self-reported disabilities or illnesses, and caretaking responsibilities. They also summarize other economic research that attributes this decline to changing industry structure, falling demand for jobs that prime-age men have traditionally held, and the opioid crisis.”
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2025/09/trends-in-us-labor-force-participation-rates-for-men/
That’s an opportunity for Democrats to mitigate some of these factors, or they could just see if Trump can reverse this trend and turn more working class young men into Republicans voters.
I quit reading after "execution."