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Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

I'm torn between admiring the tenacity of people trying to manufacture anything in a totally broken environment and wondering why they don't just leave.

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The problem is that in order to emigrate from where they are (third-world / developing) to another country (likely first-world / developed), they would need to move on one of these visas: (a) student (b) worker (c) family member of someone already in said country.

(a) requires a substantial financial outlay, (b) requires a job offer AND visa sponsorship from a hiring company and (c) is probably easiest but requires a family member to be already present in the country with a solid visa status.

>wondering why they don't just leave.

It's not that easy. The vast majority will never have a viable shot at leaving. Basically you either need a lot of money or a professional degree (doctor, lawyer, programmer etc).

Provided your country is not inherently inhospitable to life, which in this case it isn't, I think it is reasonable for people to have a degree of national pride (in addition to numeric reality of emigration: only so many can go).

Because that's all you have ever known. Watching TV or documentaries of cushy life seems sci-fyi or something that you dont't think about too much just like watching star wars doesn't make you colonize other planets.

Because the First World is doing its best to keep people out of it.

Someone wants to come to <Developed Country>, to do useful and productive work? We can't have that! We're all out of work that needs doing!

I mean, sure, our bridges are occasionally falling over, my street is filled with potholes, daycares are limited, and cost parents thousands of dollars, classrooms are overcrowded, for some reason 30 minutes of a nurse's time gets billed at $5000, and the line at the DMV is 40 minutes long, but I assure you - there are no jobs here!

Why would the first world want third world immigrants?

Because the first world has no shortage of useful, >100% ROI work that needs doing, and immigrants are willing to do it.

The fact that this is viewed as a bad thing is testament to how utterly insane our economic system is.

What jobs are you talking about?

Why would first world workers want to compete with third world workers?

You also have to provide the immigrants with whatever social spending to which locals are entitled. They cost money; if the immigrants pay less in taxes than they receive in social benefits, they are a net economic loss. And, as you may expect, a poor immigrant likely pays little or even no taxes if their income is low enough.

Also, lowering the price of labor in a particular industry makes other people in it be paid less, or fired. As a result, they buy less, etc, slowing down the entire economy, influencing maybe your own wages.

> You also have to provide the immigrants with whatever social spending to which locals are entitled

Quite a lot of countries don't.

> You also have to provide the immigrants with whatever social spending to which locals are entitled

Do you? Why?

I'm not saying you shouldn't, but I am saying this is an assumption worth questioning.

Also, consider that adult immigrants save your social services one of the biggest costs borne by our society - a K-12 education. Someone with a high school diploma arriving to the US is a flat-out gift of ~$140,000 worth of education.

> You also have to provide the immigrants with whatever social spending to which locals are entitled.

Absolutely not true. The UK, for instance, explicitly states on its work visas "No recourse to public funds", although they are happy for immigrants to pay the same taxes as locals...

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