12million immigrants came into the country during the Biden administration. This type of load on the system does not go unnoticed. NYC for example was drastically transformed.
Why do you think it’s just a “perceived” problem?
They cannot handle it with the resources being given. This is true for the red states like Texas and what not, the social services we do have struggle to handle the load. But we're choosing to let these systems struggle. We could solve it if we chose to do so.
In 2020 our population was ~330 million people. Even if 12 million people immigrated to the United States, that's an influx of 3.6%. In reality its probably closer to 4 or so million, so really more like 1.2%. We're supposedly the wealthiest country on the planet with so much opportunity and freedom and yet we can't handle adding far less than 5% of the population as migrants in five years? If that's the case, we're probably the poorest country on the planet, not the wealthiest.
And even then, we could choose to do something about that. We could do more to help people settle all across the US and be well supported to succeed. But we don't. So instead, we have people crowd the areas where we turn a blind eye to hiring illegal labor and have the social impacts concentrated there and then refuse to actually do anything to help those social costs.
But these are all things we choose to do. We could choose to do something else.
How do you decide who goes where? What stops them from moving back to the bigger cities? How to you limit demographic displacement?
The UK is doing this, and the US under Biden was trying at a smaller scale with Haitians in smaller towns. It doesn't work, and isn't so simple.
Once again, we're choosing to not have these social supports or social services. It's a choice. We could do it if we wanted, after all we're allegedly the wealthiest country on the planet but somehow can't seem to afford anything.
> How do you decide who goes where?
I'm not suggesting we force it to be a top-down forced decision. I'm often a pretty free-market and empowering people to make their own decisions kind of guy, when it makes sense. And sure, people will tend to cluster more in large cities, that happens even for non-migrants. But in the end, we're doing practically nothing to encourage people to spread out that social cost (or worse, encouraging for forcing the clustering), and that doing nothing is a choice. And then we're doing very little to support these places experiencing such large social costs, which is once again a decision.
All of this is stuff we could do differently, we just choose the status quo (or now choosing violence!) that doesn't work well for a lot of us. Sure seems to be making some people exceptionally wealthy though.
America is really struggling to support & enable a people, to create a social safety net. Opportunity is low. But often when immigrants come in from other places, they will put in enormous energy, that can bring some very sad towns back to life.
So sick of Americans empty-analysis and ignorance of externalities their society puts on others; overseas colleagues see it as white Taliban. They don't see people in streets over tariffs screwing up their lives, so they've started to tell their politicians Americans (as in the public) are not reliable actors. They don't realize it, but the American publics own credibility is shot, not just their politicians.
I have taken to cutting off friends and family and shit talking anyone in public that wants to socialize; do the politic work to put me on the hook for their healthcare, otherwise I refuse to bother with their existence. Withdrawing from people's lives is a forcing function for self reflection.
You all keep me off the hook caring you exist. I just have to help make line go up. Anything to do with you all as individuals is not my responsibility. That's the choice of the American people. I'm here to profit, not give a fuck you exist.
That's what my fellow Americans taught me through their feckless political effort. Illusory idea some invisible hand gives a shit based upon the gibberish from history they read by people who were wanking their literacy rather than inventing indoor plumbing.
your calcuation needs to account for ppl coming in on non immigrant visas too.
usa issued 10 million non-immigrant visas in 2024. not counting 5 million tourist visas.
Also, Trump approved for. Ore H1B Visas this year.
parent and gp comments are talking about "immigrants" . where do you see illegal immigrants ?
Are we instead saying that anyone not born in the US but comes in is an enemy?
Are you saying 'immigrants' anywhere in this thread automatically implies 'illegal immigrant' . Thats really confusing to me.
> Are we instead saying that anyone not born in the US but comes in is an enemy?
this is ridiculous twisting of my comment. I was just correcting record about population increase from immigration. population increase doesn't happen just from immigrant visas, ppl on non-immigrant visas stay in the country often for decades.
But sure, somewhere around 4-5 million illegal/undocumented immigrants, add another 10 million or so non-immigrant visas (which I agree, tend to have people end up staying for lots of other reasons), we're still somewhere around 15 million or so migrants with most of those having some kind of stable job lined up before they arrive. It's still less than 5% of the overall population increase with these migrants, but now a lot of these in this addition are largely economically self-sufficient from the get-go (those with work visas). You're not really changing my point at all.
In the end we're just too poor to deal with a generally pretty minor increase in population over several years while simultaneously seemingly being the wealthiest nation on the planet? How does that make sense?
Also, your claim of:
> usa issued 10 million non-immigrant visas in 2024. not counting 5 million tourist visas
is factually incorrect. The US issued around 11.5 million non-immigrant visas, of which 8.5 million were visitor visas. So not a total of 15 million visas and excluding the tourism its really about 3 million non-immigrant not-tourist visas.
> in 2024, in Fiscal Year 2024, we issued 11.5 million visas, and that’s a world record for us, breaking all previous records. Of these 8.5 million were visitor visas.
https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-s...
https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual...
There were 10,438,327 non immigrant visas. Out of which there were 5,902,426 b1/b2 and 29,286 B1.
looks like i din't count ppl with BCC in visitor visas.
> In the end we're just too poor to deal with a generally pretty minor increase in population over several years while simultaneously seemingly being the wealthiest nation on the planet? How does that make sense?
again, i didn't say this. i was just trying to correct the record. I honestly have no say in "how many is too many" . i have no idea how to even think about that to come up with a framewrok to answer that question
We had caravans of tens of thousands of people constantly streaming into the US for four years. The video evidence is out there for everyone to see. News outlets that did not engage in hiding reality and promoting falsehoods had crews at the border every day for four years collecting video evidence of what was going on.
If you care about understanding the truth, go to the US Customs and Border Protection website and look around. You can also cross check with Homeland Security and other official sources. And, yes, you will find data that predates the Trump administration...so you can't blame bias. For example, if I remember correctly, there were over THREE MILLION unauthorized entries in 2024.
If such a thing were being reported by multiple reputable sources, I’d be less inclined to roll my eyes at the preposterous idea.
You are living in an incomprehensible fantasy my friend. Good luck.
Seeing immigrants and perceiving an increased in crime, and citing that they are related is post facto rationalization fallacy.
Let's see... what other logical fallacies are in here. Oh.. people emigrate and die, so the accumulation of numbers is not valid nor does that handle double counting.
AFAIK a strong US economy generates around 250k jobs per month. Further, there were more jobs created under Biden than were lost during the pandemic.
I'd also suggest if this all were a big deal, illegal entry ought to be elevated from a civil infraction. It is more severe in the eyes of the law to drive 25 hour than it is to overstay a visa.
I didn't say they were and you have no clue if they are or are not. Even if you were personally there to demonstrate peacefully, no have no clue what forces are operating behind they scenes. And we know that part is true. One way to put it is that aspects of this is organized crime. They will eventually be discovered and held to pay for what they have done in a court of law.
> Let's see... what other logical fallacies are in here
Not a logical fallacy, but the most incomprehensible development over the years is that somehow large numbers of people think it is OK for people to just pour into the US as they wish, no controls, no admission criteria, nothing. And yet, the same people understand that this is not acceptable anywhere else in the world.
Clearly there's nothing I can say to help people who are firmly chained inside the cave looking at shadows. The indoctrination is way too powerful. Some of us try, but, sadly, the only way this insanity will pass is for people to gain clarity on their own. Not sure what it will take. Time will tell.
Perhaps this is your idea of what this country needs to become?
https://i.imgur.com/JcjpHKe.png
Not going to happen. No way.
> Some of us try, but, sadly, the only way this insanity will pass is for people to gain clarity on their own. Not sure what it will take. Time will tell.
I'd say it would take sound arguments. Meanwhile, your arguments are not sound. You did not address what I wrote. To rebut a 'guilt-by-association' criticism, you said "I didn't say they were [affiliated]". That confirms the criticism.
You did not address the post-facto rationalization criticism at all.
I also saw a person in a pokemon costume too. Until we can have some sound arguments and facts, it's very much a choose-your-own-adventure situation. Are we here to just yell at each other? I personally do think the country needs to maintain rule-of-law (with notable mention of the 1st amendment), and the full rule-of-law goes for everyone, police, protestors, and opportunists.
Not here to yell at you or anyone. Having lived in multiple cultures and countries across the world, I bring to the table a perspective that most Americans simply do not have. I have no clue if you are American, BTW. I have had the experience of being in fear for my life while detained by military thugs as a teenager. I have seen and lived the pain and misery leftist ideologies bring to populations first hand.
Any immigrant who has actually lived these realities cannot comprehend how it is that the US does not simply laugh these people off the stage. And, to be sure, the extreme right is just as destructive, yet that is not a reality in the US at all (despite the media pushing that narrative into people's brains day after day).
So, like I said, nothing I can say to you or anyone else, that much is obvious. There are things you learn about society and ideology that can only be learned from experience. Maybe the US needs to live through a leftist utopia for a period of time for everyone to come out smarter. That would be tragic, of course, but it might also be necessary. If California does not scare the shit out of the rest of the nation I don't know what will.
Have a good one.
Rolling in the National Guard and Marines on a peaceful protest is, quite frankly, un-American. It's massive federal overreach that has led to violence in the past. Would be nice if the current administration knew its own history.
They were throwing molotov cocktails, rocks, scooters, mortar-like fireworks, bottles with urine and chemicals and who knows what else. They were destroying and looting stores and vandalizing everything in sight. I don't know how many Waymo cars they destroyed (it looked like five). Far from peaceful.
The moderate or peaceful majority is never the reason for enforcement actions. These are triggered by a militant and violent minority, some of whom are actually paid to cause disruption. So, you have a couple of choices. The first is to do nothing and just let it burn. We have seen that happen before. The second is to bring forward an overwhelming show of force to dissipate that violent element (and bring them to justice). That's what happened.
This is no different from control system theory. The ideal critically-damped feedback loop does not exist when dealing with mobs. Either you crank up the dampening early or you pay the consequences of doing it too late. We can't have entire business districts destroyed by thugs. You have to stop them as soon as possible. As it stands, these animals caused a massive amount of damage in just a couple of days.
Yesterday showed the contrast very well, there was a peaceful (truly, not the fake "peaceful" pushed by the media while shit is burning) protest that seemed to number in the thousands of people. Perfect. No problems. That only happened because thugs (the minority) learned within a day or two that they would suffer severe consequences for their actions.
Violence happened, but not to any scale that makes a military deployment on American soil in peacetime make sense.
Does this look like a riot justifying soldiers to you? https://kolektiva.social/@jonahgibberish/114663170166350434
> This is no different from control system theory.
Rolling out the Marines is turning the `I` knob, not the `D` knob. It's teaching protestors "if you're gonna show up, come armed to deal with soldiers." Incredibly dangerous in a country where that firepower is in so many private hands.
I don't know when we became a nation so cowardly that we have to point military firepower at our own citizens. When strangers are turning out into the streets to thwart federal enforcement, maybe the problem is the law not the criminals?
Actually, it's the other way around.
The US southern border was very porous for most of its history. Around 1986, a combination of moral panic about Latino influence on the culture and concerns about drug trade enabled the Reagan administration and Congress to tighten immigration law into something approximating the structure we have today in terms of enforcement (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5049707/).
This backfired spectacularly. Let people bop back and forth to Tijuana, and they bop back and forth to Tijuana. Force them to struggle to cross the border, to declare nationality, start evicting them if they over-stay... And now they have reason to choose and to fight for the choice. The result of closing the border is undocumented immigration went up (secondary statistics strongly suggesting that this was actual immigration, not enforcement resulting from more tracking of undocumented immigrants).
Regardless of the law on paper, under-enforcement was the behavior of the land for nearly a century, and this new regime is an experiment that has strongly suggested the law was sourly anti-human to begin with.
(As a meta-comment on law: you're talking to a generation that watched the War on Drugs happen. Don't be surprised Americans have soured on the notion, in general, that law and morality are closely interlocked).
People died and permanently retired during the pandemic. It's possible the 10 million number represents a restored workforce; it's also possible it represents a changed workforce.
If the latter, that illegal immigration allowed the US to recover faster than it would have otherwise and the lesson from history is we're a stronger nation for easing immigration restrictions.
There is no question whatsoever that immigration, legal and done correctly, is a force for good. As a legal immigrant, it understand this very well.
In fact, I understand the entire process very well, including the illegal immigration part. You see, when I was six years old, my parents overstayed their tourist visa in the US. They were then told to leave and my entire family left. Two years later, after going through proper channels, we obtained permission to come to the US legally.
I truly do not understand how people twist themselves into a pretzel to justify illegal entry into a country. Actually, it is worse than that, the only country where they seem to think this is OK is the US. Every single person who is for illegal immigration in the US understands why you cannot just move to New Zealand, for example, to stay and work there without permission. They also understand New Zealand's points system for the selection of who is granted permanent residency. Not in the US. Of course not.
Proponents also say that not enough people are let in legally or that it is too slow. Two points to be made here. The entire planet wants to come to the US, so, yeah, it will take a couple of years (as it did for my family). Second, when millions of people enter illegally, the annual quota for legal immigration cannot be increased. Doing so would exacerbate the problem. So, illegal immigration actually hinders changes and growth of the legal immigration system.
Finally, proponents of illegal immigrants are of the same ilk as those who propose raising tax rates for everyone except themselves. And, when they do include themselves, they don't lead by example and simply send more money than they owe to the government. Same with immigration. How?
I break into your home with my entire family while you are on vacation. I start paying the bills; power, water, insurance, heck, I even pay the mortgage.
Can we all stay in your home forever? You are welcome to come back from your vacation and share the home with us?
Of course not. Nobody of sound mind would accept such a situation.
How is breaking and entering into a country --any country-- justified and elevated to almost be a virtue?
While not a perfect analogy, of course, this does illustrate a fundamental idea: You don't get to grab things (your iPhone, car, home, residency, benefits, etc.) by force and keep them just because you did. If the world worked that way we would all be walking around with a firearm strapped to our leg and blood would run down every street in the nation. Violating these fundamental rights is nothing less than destructive to society.
Yes, of course, and this is not contradictory. "American Exceptionalism" means different things to different people, but broadly speaking: as a nation built of immigrants, there's no particular "right" time to pull up the ladder and say "That's enough immigrants now." Most people who support this position (not all, but enough to be concerning), when you peel back the veneer, support it because they want America to be "A nation of X" and America facing the reality of more people with different world experiences threatens that goal. There's a reason the protests in Charlottesville turned from being about the history of the South to chants of "Blood and Soil."
Regardless of what the law says: the reality on the ground is the American economy is relying on the labor provided by the undocumented, and they are our friends and neighbors for years running. Sometimes, when a law bends too hard against what the people actually want, you ditch the law. A government fails to grasp that to its peril; hopefully, it only results in tea wasted in the harbor.
> when millions of people enter illegally, the annual quota for legal immigration cannot be increased
Untrue; these are rules we make up for ourselves. Congress could set the number to zero tomorrow. Or infinity. It's entirely up to us.
> Finally, proponents of illegal immigrants are of the same ilk as those who propose raising tax rates for everyone except themselves
I think we'd have to agree to disagree. I, for instance, am in favor of raising taxes on myself and people in my tax bracket, as well as basically everyone above my tax bracket. No strong opinion on lower brackets. And I do send more than I owe to the government. And buy bonds.
Your meta-argument is "These people don't see the problems;" I think you are mistaken. People see the problems, they just think they're better handled with community service than with truncheons and planes to some other country.
> I break into your home with my entire family while you are on vacation. I start paying the bills; power, water, insurance, heck, I even pay the mortgage.
> Can we all stay in your home forever?
I mean, that's an argument about "squatter's rights," not immigration, but for what it's worth... yes? The law in many states does recognize your right to keep using the land if you develop it and it's de-facto abandoned. If I own so much land I can't use all of it and you find a better use for it, that's on me.
The nature of immigration is so divorced from this analogy as to make it worthless. Try this one instead: You come here, build a house, raise a family. Five years later, I come along and try to kick you out because you didn't cross an 'i' on some paperwork in 2019. Is this just, or should I leave you the heck alone because you're not hurting anyone?
> You don't get to grab things (your iPhone, car, home, residency, benefits, etc.) by force and keep them just because you did
I'm sure you're not arguing "America should be returned to the Native Americans..." But that is the argument you are making here. Are you sure you mean it?
... FWIW, I'm sorry your parents were forced out. In an ideal world, that shouldn't have happened. That would have been, what, roundabouts the Reagan presidency? Reagan's administration set us on the path to where we are today by deciding a lot of laws on the books suddenly needed enforcement where little had happened. To all our detriment.
Well, time to exit this thread. The problem with HN having become a monoculture forum is that it is impossible to have conversations. I never downvote or flag anyone, particularly those who disagree with me. The same is not true on the other side, if you don't tow the line you get attacked, downvoted and flagged mercilessly until you shut your mouth. So, yeah, you win. Have a good day.
I appreciate seeing your vantage point on this topic. While we do not agree, It is helpful to see other people's takes.
Just in case you misinterpreted my story, I think it was 100% correct and proper for the US to ask my family to leave, apply for permission to come back legally and finally do so. My parents did not do the right thing by overstaying their visa and working. In other words, I do not agree that they should have been allowed to stay.
When they did obtain authorization they had to agree to not be a burden to US taxpayers for five years. I also agree with this.
Legal and orderly immigration is essential for societies to function. This is true everywhere on this planet.
We are left in a very, very bad place when the media can't be relied on to tell the truth. But here we are..
I wish we could tell that to Trump.
>We had caravans of tens of thousands of people constantly streaming into the US for four years. T
Okay, and Biden deported more people than Trump's first term. Is that fact a joke too?
>go to the US Customs and Border Protection website and look around.
Okay, what am I looking for? The most recent news update was June 5th about building a wall in Arizona. I thought that 2016 narrative was over?
>if I remember correctly, there were over THREE MILLION unauthorized entries in 2024.
And
>In Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, there were 271,484 individuals removed from the US by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). This number represents an increase of nearly 90% compared to the previous fiscal year. This data includes removals by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).
Why are we acting like Biden did nothing?
> Annual net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people.
From ChatGPT:
> So, while 10–11 million CBP encounters is the most solid official figure, when you add gotaways, overstays, and parole entries, the total number of people likely entering without full authorization could reasonably be around 15–17 million during the Biden presidency.
Trying to research this, I see examples like Denver and Chicago that have had struggles, anx did things like limit shelter stats to 72 hours. I found no examples though that were point blank: "we cannot handle this." Again, excluding mayor Adam's, perhaps you can help fill in the gaps with concrete examples and hopefully some verbatim quotes of "we cannot handle this?"
When you wrote "so they", I want to be sure that the 'they' refers to bus operators that were payed to drop off migrants in Chicago:
"The city says buses can arrive only during daytime hours so volunteers can be available to help, but bus drivers are responding by dropping migrants off in Chicago suburbs at night." [1]
The '2 buses per day' needs context. That could very well be a simple ask to not send them all at once. Further, the buses we are talking about were meant to overload the target the cities. They were sent with no notice, no coordination, just dumping a couple hundred or more people off into a random place in a random city. The ask therefore of "don't send all buses just on the same day", instead spread it out so that the volunteer resources are not overwhelmed and have a chance to work with and place everyone. I don't want to belabor this too much further, but I strongly suspect the desire for 2 buses max was a lot more about load balancing than it was rate limiting.
My impression, Chicago was more like "do this orderly, we can handle it, just don't drop off a couple hundred people all at once in some random place without telling us."
[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/01/06/1223287116/chicago-is-tighten...
load balance with what exactly ? there is only one server thats rate limiting. oh you mean other servers being border states that aren't allowed to do similar rate limiting?
you asked "examples and hopefully some verbatim quotes of "we cannot handle this?""
I gave you an example of exactly that but you say you "suspect" its not that. Chicago doesn't need "volunteers" to handle intake. City spent 700M dollars to migrant housing, employing thousands of people in all sorts of roles. You think they are dependent on volunteers to man a bus intake point? That was all clearly a ruse. Migrant shelters were very unpopular with mayor's core constituency[1].
> do this orderly, we can handle it
It was not like that it was "we can only take 2 buses total per day any" It was clearly stated in city ordinance. Why are you twisting it into something else. Demand doesn't just drop off just because city decided to rate limit.
I think you are being higly disingenuous here.
Edit: ok i see why from your other comments. You were making a statement not asking a question about cities not wanting migrants.
Anyways, I don't have dog in this fight. I am telling you what the mood was here in south chicago at that time.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/05/11/south-shore-neighbor...
Sorry, I should have been more direct. I do not see your example is a verbatim, "we cannot handle this." Your example strikes me as a: "please don't dump everyone on us all at once without telling us first. Spread it out some, give us notice, and don't do it in the middle of the night so that the people who would help are available."
> Chicago doesn't need "volunteers" to handle intake.
I'm just quoting the source, from the previously referenced [1]: "The city says buses can arrive only during daytime hours so volunteers can be available to help."
> Demand doesn't just drop off just because city decided to rate limit.
We agree there was a limit put in place. We have not yet established the intent was to rate limit vs any other plausible explanation. Even if load balancing were not the intent, that does not prove the intent was rate limiting.
OTOH, if we did know the total number of buses, then we could infer rate limiting. Notably if there are more than 14 buses/wk, then the 2 buses per day limit would be a rate limit. If it's 10 busses/wk, then a 2 bus/day max is not a rate limit beyond the 24 hour threshold, which is exactly load balancing.
> Anyways, I don't have dog in this fight. I am telling you what the mood was here in south chicago at that time.
I appreciate that. I can understand that there would have been a tense mood. The way people were 'shipped' to Chicago seemed intended to put high stress on the community receiving them.
> I strongly suspect
> My impression
so i guess its just your interpretation against mine. prbly not productive to discuss this anymore.
anyways kind of boring done to death on internet a million times before :)
There were not 12 million immigrants entering during the Biden administration. Please provide balanced proof.
The only people in NY that claimed we couldn’t handle it were the Mayor who was trying to get out of his blatant corruption by appealing to Trump.
Funny how that seems to have ended magically as soon as Trump was elected.
We all point to Texas's education department as a laughing stock of results. But we expect Texas to bear a massive part of the burden of low income non-English migrants while using the same measuring stick to compare. And we act like this is fair. And don't get me wrong, Texas' legislature is complicit for the failure! We should all do more to support these communities.
I do agree, it's largely a self inflicted problem. But things need to change to properly deal with the increase in those relying on public programs. They're underfunded, understaffed, and under supplied. We're not setting people up for success, and it shows.
It can't possibly be that hard to find Spanish speaking teachers in Texas.
When you can have 80% of the take home apay but have fewer parents issuing death threats while filling tacos at Taco Bell (and they pay for your community college to go elsewhere) it's no surprise teachers choose to go elsewhere.
Practically every school district in Texas is facing a qualified teacher shortage.
Of course, the Trump admin has responded to this by deciding not to fund the TQP grant program, which in part trains and places teachers in high-need areas like STEM, special ed, and bilingual ed. This struggle is mostly a self-inflicted policy choice.
I'm saying we need to change our funding for education and protect workers rights. We need to crack down on those hiring illegal labor. I agree things need to change. I think the federal government should acknowledge we're being more impacted by immigration than many other states and help more with education and other social programs. I think it was a bad choice for us to not expand Medicaid back in the day and I think its bad we're talking about restricting it more. I'm probably not the person you're picturing in your mind, I'm going to go ride a bicycle to pick up my kids from school today and I've talked a few friends of mine out of buying a pickup truck.
> And don't get me wrong, Texas' legislature is complicit for the failure!
I'm fully agreeing at least half the problem is within.
> Rounding people up and locking them up won’t solve the other self inflicted problems
I agree! I don't think a lot of what Texas is doing is good!
The Democrats, who love to lecture everybody about "protecting democracy", are attempting to sway voter demographics in their favor through illegal immigration. California used to be a Republican state till it was turned deep blue through immigration.
And one-party states produce the worst, most incompetent politicians, who rise to the top not through the battle of ideas, ability and accountability but through political favors and backroom deals.
Gavin Newsom is the perfect example of this.
If they're failing, they're failing extremely well. I wonder how we get some of that failure in my part of the country?
Remind me again why we want to kick immigrants out?