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Comment by konbaji | Hacker News Reader

I am a strong supporter of the current administration's restrictions on immigration. The resources in the US are simply too scarce to support unfettered immigration. Moreover, we need less "white immigrants" to come here in order to maintain diversity.

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>I am a strong supporter of the current administration's restrictions on immigration.

He's visiting a conference not immigrating.

Just get a projector and let him present via webcast. Not sure I'd want to risk coming to the US if the authorities might detain me for something I did as a teenager. (not saying this individual did that, but example.)

It's not the same thing. Better to move the conference to a country more conducive to international collab then.

Sorry he won't webcast. Americans can buy tickets and go to his country if they wish to be among smart peers.

> He's visiting a conference not immigrating.

Crazy thought: perhaps the visa folks are thinking that he already missed the conference and they have stacks of other work to do.

This is just... wrong? We want smart people here in the US. We should poach them and entice them to come here by all reasonable measures.

Plus, people aren't having kids like they used to. So you need to replace population somehow. See also: Japan.

'we want smart people' I agree with this sentiment, but feel in both the US and here in Australia it is used to deflect examination of the specifics of how immigration is being used. I think in our eagerness to oppose xenophobic ideologies, we are currently failing to articulate the problems with immigration programs.

I fear in Australia we are creeping towards a regressed, more limited form of democracy. Foreign workers who come here not as free agents, but within the constraints of a specific work contract are an ever increasing fraction of the population - a fraction that skews heavily towards non-professional working class - and have no access to political representation.

This leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, and that exploitation is used as an economic lever against the entire population.

I believe bringing people to work in our economies without a clear fast path to full citizenship is eroding citizenship for all.

Why do you need to replace population? Is Japan really that bad of a place? And Japan's population has been in the 120-130 million range for the last 35 years, so it's not like there's been a huge swing either way.

Japan has had issues with finding workers to support their elderly population. No, it isn't a bad place. But yes, there are issues to solve that come with an aging population and a shrinking population.

I'm sure if they raise the wages they'll suddenly find enough people locally

And yet Japan has the second-longest life expectancy in the world. The "we need open borders or we'll end up like Japan" argument just doesn't seem very strong when Japan does well in most quality-of-life metrics.

We want smart people here in the US

Agreed. But ~90% of all permanent residencies approved have nothing to do with education or employment. It's just family reunification.

"Just family reunification"

Also a good thing in and of itself.

> The resources in the US are simply too scarce to support unfettered immigration.

I fundamentally disagree with you, but I’m interested in hearing your viewpoint. Would you be willing to expand on what you mean by this statement? Are you referring primarily to jobs and government assistance?

> > The resources in the US are simply too scarce to support unfettered immigration.

> I fundamentally disagree with you, but I’m interested in hearing your viewpoint.

Is there any country with unfettered immigration?

Depends on your timespan. In the modern era only failed states that can’t actually secure their own borders have unfettered immigration; but it’s pretty rare for people to want to go into such countries.

Scroll back a few centuries, and what we’d consider to be “open borders” was much more the norm.

Then again, a few centuries before that and the vast majority of residents in Europe couldn’t legally leave the land that they were on, forget the concept of immigration. Leaving town could make you an outlaw, let alone your country.

That's still true in some places today.

The United States before 1924 for one. Passports and travel documents didn't really exist at all until Napoleonic-ish times and weren't widespread until about WWI.

I personally feel that defining "citizen" in any other way than "people who are currently living here" is a form of apartheid and antithetical to our constitution.

Part of why immigration law is so confusing and contradictory is that the framers of the Constitution had no concept of someone living in a country (with intent to stay) and not being a citizen. Even slaves and women were considered citizens.

They definitely did have an idea of people living here who were not citizens. Thus the Naturalization Act of 1790.

Or in 1882 when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Svalbard might fit the bill. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_Svalbard

> but I’m interested in hearing your viewpoint.

Given my downvotes it seems others here are not so interested. Nevertheless, I will give you an example.

Housing. I am a bay area native and through my lifetime I have seen certain immigrants from Europe and South Asia, push up the cost of housing. Those tech H1B workers only serve to exacerbate this issue.

I can no longer afford to buy a property unless I work in tech or win the lottery. Others like myself have grown resentful, rightfully so, of these transplants and immigrants.

So what makes you think that immigrants are the tipping point? If there were no immigrants, who's to say white people (who are themselves... descended from immigrants) wouldn't fill those housing units?

Edit: housing prices are somewhat a function of demand, and I don't think you've adequately shown that any excess demand is driven by (recent) immigrants. You're being downvoted because this rhetoric is blatantly jingoistic. There ARE nuanced conversations to have about immigration policy; "immigrants make Bay Area housing expensive" is not one of them.

I say this knowing that it is a blunt statement, but if you believe that being born (and your ancestors being born) in America (the continent) entitles you to the land more than newcomers, the notion doesn’t hold much historical water.

Why do you feel entitled to live in the bay area? Why not move to India or Nevada?

India? Well probably because he's not an Indian citizen?

Your place of birth should not entitle you cheaper access to housing or land.

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