Forget Politics, are we heading for a recession

[hollodero]

(09-16-2023, 05:02 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Visa overstays are a problem as well, i haven't ever said they weren't but it's not an excuse to not stop illegal crossings. 
Get those under control and then you can focus on overstays. Gotta keep taking those baby steps, it's not a problem that can be fixed overnight. 
Already have said that we need to get all Airlines and Crossings updated with better reporting as some actually do leave but it's not always updated in the system.  And i have no idea why UK is the leader in overstays, guess they didn't get the memo of 1776 that we aren't a colony anymore. And some overstays apply for Aslyym which means they are safe from deportation for likely 5+ years (court time and appeal if denied). 

Illegals actually take jobs from Documented workers and USC's. Yea yea i get the whole cheap labor thing, but i think it's much more a political rhetoric than actual truth. 

Truth is we can only handle so much uneducated labor. I am curious though how Austria has become one of the most Anti-Immigrant counties out there now.
If we only had about a 3-4% immigration rate like you guys, i'm sure we could handle that, but ours fluctuates between 13-15% of our total population, and we simply don't have the resources to handle that volume.

One thing that i hate most, is when EU went thru the Muslim refugees, some countries put up fences/barricades along their borders to help control the problem, yet we get looked down upon because we want to protect our borders as well?

First off, sorry for answering so late. I did not have the time resources recently, and this is not an easy answer to give.
Mainly because I am not American and in the end can not delve too deeply into specifics about your southern border. What I can do is give an outsider perspective.

And from that perspective, I agree with you on many things actually. The sheer number of illegals in the US alone is apparently up to 12 million people, maybe more even, hard to count. That is indeed unfathomable for me too. And the liberal answer usually containing some variant of "Hmm, you bring that up, might you have an issue with brown people, uuh, scared of them hah?" isn't all that satisfying - even if the shoue sure fits for some people. I'd also agree with birthright citizenship being an issue, that probably has its historic justification, but is fallling out of time. My country does not do it that way and I sure wouldn't want it to.


So I also agree that illegal immigration is an issue to be dealt with. I would probably disagree on the measures taken. Just going after illegals and throwing them out does not solve anything, you can do that all the time and folks will just come back anyway. Plus, yeah I also find it not fair from a humanity aspect. Yes these people broke a law, one that is broken by millions and millions of people, at which point it is more of a friendly suggestion than a law. As I said, then they found work, which to me is the bigger issue. 
I looked it up, if you employ an undocumented worker and get caught, you can pay up to 3.000 dollars in fines. Which is laughable, not even a slap on the wrist really. And you have politicians of both parties that endorse this kind of "meh, illegal workers, whatever" policies. Probably because at their donor meetings they are all told that the big spenders don't want the influx of illegal immigrants to stop. These workers are completely dependant, exploitable, underpaid, without rights, the closest to a work slave you can go these days. These, to me, are the big culprits, not so much the desperate immigrant. These folks that set up and run a system that ensures the flow of illegal immigrants never stops. And imho, as a nation you have a certain responsibility for dealing with your failed policies, and throwing out illegal immigrants imho misses the mark and in the end punishes the wrong folks. Folks that were lured in by all that leniency, then stayed for years, contributing, not taking in social benefits, being non-criminal and yes, imho for all that and for the nation's guilt for the whole situation deserve to be pardoned under these circumstances. Maybe not by a citizenship, but yeah imho with the right to remain here.

To me, it's about these employers. They need to be fined heftily for employing undocumented workers, it has to hurt them severely to get caught, and suddenly the incentive to risk it is way lower, as is the incentive for undocumented workers to try their luck in the US. Also, making visa overstays harder (to me it seems like those are just desired now), also for sure certain fortifications at the green border, fences and maybe walls even, all that has its place.

I'd also argue that a main issue is the dire economical situation your southern neighbour is in, which creates so many illegal immigrants in the first place. Europe was in a similar position once after we destroyed our continent with two devastating wars. And the US figured out it makes more sense to strengthen our economies and have a strong trade partner in the future, rather than a poor house. And imho, you can follow a similar approach with Mexico, a Marshall plan of sorts. That to me would be money better spent than building a huge wall.

Which leads me to the Trump wall. My position is not and has never been that there can be no kind of border protection ever. As you rightfully say, we have all kinds of fences at the EU's borders as well. However, not even our most right-wing populists, and we have plenty of them, demand to put up a huge amount of money to build a wall across our complete Eastern land border. That's my issue with it, that it is an absurd, unnecessary and woefully expensive idea that does not do all that much to fight the issue, would come with lots of expropriations, costs billions to build and more billions to maintain every year. Not to mention that it is clearly hostile towards your southern neighbour and torpedoes all efforts to work with Mexico in the future. Have you seen Vicente Fox being all angry. That reaction is shared by most Mexicans, that will not be quite coopoerative with the US an a plethora of things any longer. Try asking them to help along with fighting drugs after you built that 2.000 miles long monstrosity. They'll give you the finger and claim you started this finger-giving.


And finally, to Austria. First off, and it was already mentioned, your numbers seem to be off regarding the immigration rates. Ours is pretty much correct, but the US does not face a 15% immigration rate. That would mean 50 milion immigrants a year, which probably even Ann Coulter wouldn't believe. As far as I can find out, US immigration rates are quite close to Austria's. It is quite an issue here for that reason, sure. We are way different as the US demographically, also way smaller, but our big towns face a similar situation - never mind we only have one big town: In Vienna alone foreigners make up over 30% of the total population.

Which might also in part answer your question of how we are so distinctly anti-immigrant. To which I just want to add, we certainly have that image and I know why, but to an extent it is not entirely fair. Eg. countries like Hungary are demonstrably even more hostile towards immigrants. As to why we are as well, that question is real complicated to answer comprehensibly. So many factors, historical ones for example. The main issues, imho, are twofold. First, there are just many foreigners coming, and that very much includes those from the EU itself, eastern european workers that are not called immigrants but still come here in large numbers and indeed take away jobs and/or makes them pay way less. A problem I faced many times, which is not addressed and not really solvable, since every EU citizen can live and work wherever they please. The second issue to mention is that we're a narrow country that usually also narrows minds, folks here need scapegoats and guilty parties and we ran out of Jews. So here comes the evil foreigner who's bringing crime and drugs and then some. We have the freedom party, made big by a guy called Jörg Haider (maybe you've heard of him once), who was amongst Europe's main villains for a time, to many the inventor of modern day right-wing populism and in a sense the political role model for folks like Trump (or Le Pen and how they are called here). That's part of our image, that guy and his party that ran on one main message, foreigners are evil and ruin everything.

So this would be my overly long response that leaves out many things still. Sorry for the length, sorry for the wait.