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Comment by calgoo | Hacker News Reader

There has always been high immigration in the US, its a country built on immigration!! Like others have said, the current levels are not higher then in the past, its just the political parties that are using it to hide the real problems of ultra rich and corporations abusing the country. In regards to changing society; what is changing? The language? Again, the US is built on immigrants. Are the Italian - Americans in NY going to stop being Italian - Americans all of a sudden? No, they will continue being who they are; maybe they will pick up another language or some new recipes for their cookbooks.

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> political parties that are using it to hide the real problems of ultra rich and corporations abusing the country

Yup, same in Europe. There's constant fear mongering with racist undertones in the media about illegal immigrants and refugees, it's driving people crazy and violent against each other. All the while they're conveniently distracted from the root of their social ills.

Europe has the "pie" in form of considerable (by standards of most of the rest of the world, including US) welfare benefits. I don't think it's particularly surprising that people who have access to it today don't want to share. The legal vs illegal distinction is really mostly about that - when it's legal, it can be significantly curtailed (and the same people who are against illegal immigration saying "just go through the process" tend to also be in favor of making that process much more difficult).

What welfare benefits? Are you living 50 years ago?

Unemployment insurance, free healthcare, and some form of guaranteed retirement income are nearly universal. To maintain these at the same levels, you need a certain proportion of people who work in relatively high-paid jobs and pay correspondingly high taxes. Which is precisely why immigration systems in most developed countries emphasize skilled immigration.

They keep shrinking and shrinking.

I regret that comment. I was upset and shouldn’t have posted it.

But what I would say is: countries have distinct cultures, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to preserve them, which implies controlling the rate of immigration from different cultures. The U.S. would be quite different if we replaced half the population with people from Iran, China, or even England. There is a happy medium.Pros and cons.

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