Could the wall be effective?
What aspects of Trump’s wall could work? Could it really prevent immigration?
Personally, I believe that if a person/family is already so inclined as to cross the border illegally, I doubt a wall would stop them, but what do you think?
Personally, I believe that if a person/family is already so inclined as to cross the border illegally, I doubt a wall would stop them, but what do you think?
Comments (70)
That is not an argument that clinches the specific case of Trump's wall (or any other wall), of course. Cost/benefit analyses are required -- and are presumably taking place. But the point is that the goal of the proposal is not to "prevent [illegal] immigration", it is rather to raise the costs associated with it.
There was already a tunnel under a segment of the wall. I think that says it all. It's a waste of money and resources.
And in what way would it help the situation? Prevent what? If people move over the border and won't get proper help to integrate into society, they will feed the socioeconomic problems with poverty etc.
What if the cost of the wall would be put on better relations with neighboring countries, with better help of integration for immigrants coming into the country? Problems by immigrated people do not come from them being "different", that is in essence racism. The problems come out of their socioeconomic situation and the lack of integration. It raises tribalism, segregation and hate within society and the consequences can be felt for decades after.
Name one country that has increased long term stability with force and locking borders in the past?
Name one country that has increased instability because of force and locking borders?
No.
The whole thing is an idiotic punchline for simpletons: Build a wall and Mexico will pay for it.
Yeah! More beer...
The real immigration "problem" comes from visa overstays with Canada being the main offender, at twice the rate of Mexico.
So a southern border wall is simply a Trumpian dogwhistle.
Soon, the USA will be overrun with Canadians.
Well, consider Rome's experience with walls (and that of other civilizations/nations) for purposes of making a determination of the value of the thing. Hadrian's Wall was about 70 modern miles in length; much shorter than a wall along contemplated by Trump, which is estimated at 700-900 miles long (not the entire border with Mexico). There were 17 large forts constructed along it, smaller forts every Roman mile (.92 of an English mile), and watchtowers every third of a mile. It was manned by about 10,000 to 15,000 solders. After Hadrian's death, it was abandoned by Antoninus Pius, his immediate successor, who built a wall made largely of turf (instead of stone, like Hadrian's) further to the north, about 37 miles long. Then Marcus Aurelius, immediate successor of Antoninus Pius, withdrew the troops from the Antonine Wall, back to Hadrian's Wall
Historian's dispute whether the walls were truly defensive, to keep the barbarian's out, or whether their purpose was symbolic--to show Roman might and achievement. It's doubtful that the walls kept the barbarians at bay to any great extent, but it seems they were never tested as a barrier. There were no major battles at or for the walls. They may have been useful in regulating somewhat the flow of traffic north and south. But Hadrian's wall in particular was important more for the fact that it served to develop the land to the south of it, e.g. villages were created behind it, roads were built, farms were needed, etc. Some of the wall forts continued in use until the legions left Briton in the 5th century. If the walls were intended to be defensive, it seems they were significant not as barriers but for other reasons.
It doesn't seem contemplated that Trump's wall will be manned as the Roman walls were, so I question how effective it will be as a barrier. I suspect people will go under, around it, over it or even through it if they want or need to. I don't think it will be an important symbol, except perhaps of expense in the service of vanity. It won't be a development tool or "civilizing" tool as the Roman walls may have been. It's another stunt. That's what this man is about.
Tim, Can you please put into context for me the Dems' former strong support for a barrier (fence, wall, whatever) over the past few years? For example:
Democrats supported the wall in 2006 when it was a fence
https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/2006-secure-fence-act-vs-trumps-border-wall
I'm sure you've seen the strong anti-illegal immigration quotes from Obama, Hillary, and Schumer on video. If not I'll be glad to post them for you to study.
Question: There are currently 693 miles of fence along the US-Mexico border. Would you be in favor of tearing them down?
This is not a Trump or anti-Trump post. This is about the politics of the US-Mexico border.
Do you approve of a fence but not a wall? Is it the word "wall" you dislike, but you're ok with the word "fence" or "barrier?" Think the 693 miles of existing fence should be torn down? Or that 693 miles of fence is ok but definitely not 694? It's hard to understand how suddenly Trump is bad and evil for agreeing with what the Democrats voted for and spoke in favor of.
The Great Trump Wall is completely symbolic, a monument to the most excellent Donald who Made America Great Again.
It isn't the physical barrier that effectively keeps people in or out. What works are the land mines, the machine guns, the watchtowers, drones, mobile pounce squads, ill-tempered guards and worse-tempered guard dogs, and a robust desire to use force. It's the summary executions, the avoidance of fussy civil rights rules, the ICE raids where the illegal workers are carted off to labor camps, and so on.
Are their no planes capable of strafing caravans? Where are the box cars to deliver people back to their beloved homelands?
Brick walls? Naaah!
Let me try to summarize your apparent argument here:
"The Democrats voted for border security measures before. The wall is a border security measure. Therefore the Democrats should be in favor of the wall."
This is not convincing, because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. Your bolded sentence nicely summarizes the absurdity of your position:
Quoting fishfry
A wall in 2019 is not a fence in 2006.
I guess there's no money in it.
Yep. An effective joint effort to minimize illegal immigration would be far complicated to explain to a Trump supporter.
Or to Trump, for that matter. A physical concrete wall Trump can understand.
So, the argument now is not that Dems want open borders (the usual right-wing line), but actually that they are just as strong on border security as Trump and really want a wall, but covered it up in advance by pretending they only wanted a fence, so they could prevent a wall when Trump came to power because they knew he'd want one and that would give them a great opportunity to not get what they really wanted all along.
Interesting theory. :chin:
Even for those who do want to sneak in, are we forgetting about the huge bodies of water that aren't going to have any wall?--the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean?
You assume that common people and politicians trying to get votes from common people have enough knowledge to understand this. I always assume most people to be initially stupid and uneducated until proven otherwise, but that's just the nihilistic part of me :sweat:
I was just providing some detail to the question the TC asked, "Could it really prevent immigration?" The answer is "no," for the reasons I gave.
And I agreed with my kinda ironic description of why it is as you say.
The point being that the Dems are awful hypocrites on this issue. Take the "putting kids in cages" picture used against Trump, that turned out to be from 2014 when Obama put kids in cages. In the summer of 2014 the Obama administration had a terrible humanitarian crisis on the southern border, which it handled very badly. Instead of separating families until their identities could be confirmed, the Obama administration just turned kids over to traffickers. You could look it up, some of the scandals became public.
It's terribly hypocritical for the Democrats to label Trump's policies as cruel when Obama's response to the 2014 crisis was arguably worse. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that a lot of people don't even know about the 2014 crisis because there was very little mainstream coverage. So again it's political and has nothing to do with the reality on the ground.
For the record I don't agree with Trump's policies regarding the Mexican border. It's just that as someone who's followed US-Mexican politics for decades, I find the willful ignorance on the left appalling. Even those pictures of that woman and kid getting teargassed. Obama teargassed migrants at the border on average once a month from 2011 to 2016. You could look that up too. Hell I was teargassed at the Occupy protests in 2011. Ain't that big a deal. The moral posturing of the left is silly to people who actually follow border politics.
No that is not my argument. That's a strawman.
The point is that the Dems' current rhetoric is seriously out of alignment with their rhetoric from when they ran the government. You do know that Obama deported more Mexicans than Bush did, right? I object to the hypocrisy from the Dems on this issue. The Dems WERE in favor of STRONG border security before Trump showed up. Are you claiming to be unaware of that?
I've followed US-Mexican politics for forty years and lived in Mexico for four and a half years. I've been across the border in San Diego 60 times or so. You are wrong in your assumption that I don't know about the border. You know that fence sticking out into the ocean that you always see pictures of? I've been there. Not that any of this matters, but you're factually wrong about what I know.
But the point is, how did the Dems get from the Secure Fence Act accompanied by strong anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric, to the present stance of abolishing ICE and having open borders? Is everyone so consumed with hate against the Terrible Orange Man that they can't or won't examine even recent history?
I asked you some direct questions you didn't answer. Are you for a fence but against a wall? Is it just the word that bothers you? Are you in favor of tearing down the 580 miles (that's Wiki's number, earlier I posted a slightly different number I've read elsewhere)? Or do you think 579's too little, 581 too much, and 580 just right?
These are straightforward questions. Is it just the word wall versus fence that you object to? Or adding to the existing 580 or so miles of existing fence?
So, your claim now is that the Dems went from supporting a wall and gassing and caging immigrants just as much as (or more than) Trump did, to being in favour of no border security at all, i.e. just opening the border and letting everyone in. Because they don't like Trump...
Again, interesting theory. So, sources, evidence? You can start with the Democrat policy platform and show where it calls for an open border.
The wall is pretty much stupid, but I prefer it to another war. To those who think that's a false choice, like maybe we could choose something other than war or a wall, I say you're wrong.
Well, you're not getting a wall with the Dems in power in the house. So, what kind of war are you predicting and when?
Extremely simplified concept without basis in reality.
Quoting Hanover
What war?
My original response was to @tim wood. He went on a diatribe against Trump then said there was no reason for the wall.
Now please note that I am not a partisan. I despise both major parties deeply. I believe the worst the right says about the left; and the worst the left says about the right. So if you read my posts throught a partisan lens, you are bound to misunderstand me.
My point to @Tim Wood would be this: Anyone who thinks the ongoing crisis on the souther border is Trump's fault hasn't been paying attention. In fact it's the Democrats who have been making things much worse; by TALKING compassionately about the downtrodden; but then, not wanting to be branded "soft on border security," they vote for things like the Secure Fence act to shut up the right. Then Obama comes in and deports record numbers of Mexican and central American immigrants and handles in a very cruel and incompetent manner the flood of central Americans in 2014.
And then Trump shows up and says the word wall -- which I happen to agree is simply awful; I oppose Trump's border rhetoric -- but the hypocrisy from the left is just disgraceful. In fact a lot of the moral posturing from the left is exactly because deep down they KNOW that Hillary and Biden and Schumer and Reid and most other high-powered Dems in charge for the past decade were total immigration hawks and made things a lot worse.
As far as my needing to supply references that many on the left call for the abolition of ICE and a pullback in immigration enforcement ... seriously? I'm not going to read you the news.
No, among other unsubstantiated claims, you said the Dems support "open borders". Sources/evidence? (Except you can't because it's not true).
Quoting fishfry
[My bolding]
Quoting fishfry
Instead of repeating those lies here, try doing some actual research.
Quoting fishfry
Same deal. Do your own research and quote it, and your posts might have some substance instead of sounding like partisan screeds.
(It wouldn't surprise me if the Dems were hypocritical in some way (I agree they are not to be trusted), but they didn't want a "wall" before and they don't want "open borders" now.)
Is it? Or have you just changed the goal posts from Democrat voting behavior to the much more nebulous concept of "rhetoric"? Anyways, let's drop the voting behavior point then and address rhetoric.
Quoting fishfry
I confess I don't follow American politics that closely, nevertheless I am unaware of any major change. Analysing rhetoric is difficult, we'd need a large body of statements and analyze them in detail. I doubt anyone here is prepared to do that. Given that, would you share some examples of what you consider egregious changes of rhetoric?
Quoting fishfry
This seems entirely irrelevant to the discussion.
Quoting fishfry
Well last I heard, the Democrats were still in favor of providing lots of money for border security measures, just not for the wall.
Tim, you said there's no need for a wall. So do you think there's a need for a fence? What do you want to do about the existing 600 miles of fence? Tear some or all of it down? Add more as long as it's a fence and not a wall? Is this a Trump-bashing thread or a discussion of US-Mexico border policy, a situation that goes back to the Bracero program of the 1930's? Do you think there should be any international borders at all? After all, some people are one-worlders and don't believe in borders. When you say there's no need for a wall, is that what you mean? Do you think having 12-20 million people living in the shadows in the US is a good idea? Do you favor intelligent immigration reform? Or just Trump-bashing?
Ok! That's a direct answer. Not from @Tim Wood whom I originally directed the question to. But it's a response. You would say a wall is wrong, because you don't want strong borders. Which is perfectly fine, it's a coherent position that goes beyond, "Trump is a liar therefore we don't need a wall." That's what @Tim Wood wrote and it's the point I challenged him on.
But ok, weak semi-open borders. Screen for criminals. Consider this not-so-hypothetical. An adult shows up at the border with a child. They have no paperwork. The adult says, "This is my kid." You are a US customs agent. You have two choices:
* Let them into the country. Oops, you just turned a child over to a trafficker. Think it can't happen? Obama did it a lot, to avoid the bad optics of "separating families." From the WaPo, hardly a right wing rag I hope you'll agree. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/obama-administration-placed-children-with-human-traffickers-report-says/2016/01/28/39465050-c542-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html
* Or, detain the adult and the kid separately for a few weeks until you can determine the truth of the matter via DNA or perhaps an inquiry to their claimed home country for some paperwork. That sounds sensible. But now your political opponents start screeching about "ripping babies from their mothers' arms," and everyone hates you.
So, what do you do when and adult and a kid show up with no paperwork? Let the adult into the country with the child, no questions asked? Or detain them separately till you can determine whether that's a family or a trafficker with their victim?
I hope you don't think this is a hypothetical. It happens every day. Obama looked at the political optics and kept the children with their traffickers, repeatedly. Trump chose to try to verify the claims and got excoriated by the left.
What do you think?
If we're screening for criminals/known terrorists/associates, then you'd need papers--otherwise, if people didn't need papers, we'd not be able to screen for anything. Also, presumably it's not the easiest thing to just fake the papers, or again the screening would be useless in general, and there would be no point in even doing it. If it turns out to be useless in general, then what are we even doing with any border security at all, aside from checking bags to make sure that criminal items--like bombs, endangered animals/animal parts, etc.-- aren't being brought in just then? (Which by the way, I'm okay with checking, but I forgot to specify that)
But, let's pretend that, say, it's easy to fake the papers for the child trafficker, but not for other stuff.
I would just let the child trafficker with good faked papers go through, yes.
If we were talking about a child trafficker moving a kid from Belle Glade, Florida to Jacksonville, or even Newark, New Jersey to LA, then of course they'd not need any papers whatsoever. Nobody's checking anything there. Nobody's screening anything. And I don't want everyone checked whenever they travel anywhere.
I can see some merit to checking or screening people occasionally (such as when they cross a national border) to try to catch some criminals or terroristic threats, but I'd be far more easily persuaded to not even do that than I would be to force people to be held while we check their DNA just because they're traveling between countries rather than across the street or from city to city or state to state.
Just for background, by the way, I consider myself a "libertarian socialist." On the libertarian side, I'm basically a minarchist. The socialist stuff comes from disagreeing with the libertarian embrace of free-market capitalism as the official economy. I'd institute a very different, government-overseen system where the competition for scarcer resources is based on providing both the basics for everyone and the things that people want, which we'd learn via regular polling. I'm kind of a laissez-faire hippie, with the hippie side being attracted to helping people other out communally. Re borders,I think that ideally, we wouldn't even have different countries.
It's a "problem" which has no solution. It has no solution because the exact nature of "the problem" cannot even be formulated in a universally acceptable way. So "the problem" itself is a phantom problem. People like us sit around discussing "the problem", and it makes the problem seem very real, something dreadful which needs to be addressed. But all there really is, is difference of opinion as to what "the problem" is, and this is a problem, but it's not "the problem", and that is a problem because instead of talking about the real problem we talk about "the problem"..
Quoting fishfry
Could you explain why you don’t agree with Trump’s border policy?
Quoting fishfry
What is your vision?
Far easier to declare victory on fictional problems, or more precisely, delusional solutions (as if a wall will solve things) than to create real solutions to real problems. Like Trump's first national emergency, to tackle the opioid crisis. So, how things have gone after that declaration?
Just remember how "Make America Great Again" was solved: America was great again when Trump came into power.
So they didn’t support a wall; they supported a fence.
Reminds me of that time when the commies built that fence in Berlin. The Dems were all for that too.
:cool:
One of the main problems is that the border is too big to protect with a wall, and once walls are built around the current hot-spots (if it makes crossing hard enough) then the coyotes will just find new places to cross.
It won't slow down drugs, but it might slow down human traffic for a time, but probably not significantly.
History seems to suggest that, if demand remains constant, then increased costs to firms tend to be passed onto consumers. A wall will absolutely raise operating costs for the cartels, but just as absolutely that increased cost will be passed onto those who consume the cartels' products. Meaning, the cartels are going to raise their prices.
Every border crossing will suddenly be twice as lucrative for every coyote, and consequently there will be increased incentive to secure product through violence. Anyone who thinks the wall will necessarily make the border safer because it makes the border more difficult to cross has not been paying attention to the past.
(I know you're not making the argument that increased cost->increased safety, I'm just using your comment as a spring board to head off those who do)
The thinking is that relief funds for Puerto Rico and other disaster areas are going to be re-routed for the border wall. I wonder how much suffering and unnecessary loss of life this could lead to? If those relief funds are meant to secure power, access to hospitals and medicine, access to nutrition, access to education, etc, then the president is trading lives for nothing. In his on words, the "border situation" is not a time-sensitive emergency: "I didn’t have to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster."
... I doubt any reasonable court is going to accept the claim that it’s a national emergency.
:up:
I could have gotten ice-cream later, but I want it now: Ergo National Emergency!
But then my question is really, can he get away with it (can the court's really stop him)? Or is it just he's been reading Breitbart and realized he'd lose about half his base if he didn't make like he really wanted to deliver on the wall at all costs (even though he knows he can't)?
Forgive me, but I suggest the entire immigration debate be replaced with this question...
How many human beings do we want living in America?
The population of America has doubled in my lifetime. Is that good? Is that bad? What goal are we aiming for?
Please observe how immigration is being discussed around the clock for years now on every media outlet, and this simple obvious common sense bottom line question never gets asked, let alone answered.
Should we build a wall? How the hell is anybody supposed to answer that without us having the slightest clue how many people we want living in America?
No one is asking that outside the right wing because it's a ridiculous question. (I'm not calling you right wing, that's just who actually asks this question in nearly all cases)
From a straightforward economic perspective, more people increases the amount of people contributing to the economy. The jobs these people are able to more easily attain are not jobs native born Americans tend to go for, so "we" aren't losing jobs to them and our economy is already hilariously dependent on them anyway. They cannot take out of programs like Social Security despite paying into them, so the "social parasite welfare queen" idea of bunk.
The wall itself is utterly useless. Not only would it cost stupid amounts of money just to start building ($60-$70 Billion in all likelihood, and that doesn't count upkeep), most of the border can't be feasibly walled off due to the terrain. It would also require eminent domaining the hell out of people's land, which will take an era to go through the courts for that alone. Add on the fact immigration is at a 20 year low and the commit fewer crimes on average than citizens, you're just looking at a "problem" that the wall is a idiotic and massively disproportionate response to, just like it has always been.
So no, it doesn't "work" because it's justification is based on lies and even if it were based on truths the wall doesn't stop people from borrowing a tall ladder and hopping it (or just going to an area known to be unsuitable for a wall and entering that way).
Ah ok then, so 84 billion people, or any other number, would be perfectly fine for America.
I'm not arguing for any specific number, I'm arguing that it's not possible to have a coherent opinion or policy on immigration without asking this question.
There are some challenges involved in "more the merrier". As example, here in Florida, where the population has exploded in recent decades. Most of the roads (especially along the coasts) have already been widened as much as they can be without knocking down trillions of dollars worth of existing structures. And the folks from elsewhere keep on coming, keep on coming, keep on coming.
But there are advantages to a larger population as well, for example, competing with China.
You're doing what everybody else is doing, chanting your preferred political dogmas on immigration while ignoring the larger question of what our population goal is.
If we want to have many more people in America then the wall is stupid. If we feel we already have way too many people, then the wall makes some sense.
The point here is that it's not possible to have an intelligent position on immigration unless we have some idea where we're trying to go. And we have no idea because we aren't smart enough to even ask the question. Thus, by burping up all kinds of fabricated gibberish Trump is doing a good job of representing the country he was elected to serve.
It's definitely a question that moves us in the right direction, because it highlights the false dichotomy between immigration and having children - both are simply means by which the population of a country increases. When we're asking if we want immigration, what we're really asking is if we want an increased population size.
The answer is almost always yes: if a state cannot profit off a citizen paying taxes, then that state shouldn't exist anyway. Saying the state should limit immigration is like saying a store should limit the number of customers it sells to.
The "almost" from my previous paragraph follows from this kind of argument: if adding another citizen necessarily reduces living conditions by an amount greater than the gain caused by the additional citizen, then the additional citizen should be rejected. This is analogous to a store which is operating at max capacity - it would love to accept additional customers, but it can't without ruining it for the current customers.
That said, such a store would, of course, choose to expand such that it could accommodate, and profit off, more customers. Similarly, a nation can expand (new housing, new roads, etc) to accommodate new people should it find that accepting new citizens reduces living conditions. The U.S. is nowhere near capacity, and therefore should not reject new citizens.
What you should be more worried about is a decreasing population and a demographic shift to the aged. Already happening. (And not just in the US but across developed countries).
"The “replacement” fertility rate of 2.1 — enough to renew the population — is typically viewed as the optimal level for stability. But in 2017, the total fertility rate, or number of births each woman is expected to have in her childbearing years, dropped to 1.76 in the US."
"The fertility rate is an important measure of a country’s well-being. When it’s too low, countries worry that in the long term they may not have enough healthy, young workers to keep productivity up and the economy humming."
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/22/17376536/fertility-rate-united-states-births-women
And net migration to the US is moderate. Less than about a dozen European countries along with Australia and Canada.
https://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=27
The question I've raised remains unaddressed, not just here, but also in the larger cultural conversation. What do we want the population of America to be? I'm not suggesting an answer, I'm just suggesting this is a necessary question.
It's interesting to me that the whole culture can be yelling back and forth about immigration around the clock on every channel without ever getting around to asking where it is we're trying to go.
Um, no. Most conservatives don't ask that question period. To the extent that immigration is an issue to them it's to complain about it, not that they think there is a specific number or fairly understood range they want. They just don't like it, and some of their implied (sometimes explicitly stated) issues with it are rather insidious. This is particularly the case with the extreme right.
Quoting Jake
Eh, no. The problem is you think the question you're asking is relevant. Florida is a fairly niche case in terms of space. The U.S. has a plethora of unused space on the whole. The immigration issue isn't centered on whether or not we've hit some number or range, and whether we're ok with it or not. In fact, currently immigration in the U.S. from illegal entries is almost net zero (about as many leave as enter) so the question is itself predicated on a false assumption.
The actual fear conservatives have - and they even voice it aloud at times - is that they (white Americans) will become minorities. And so the optimal number question is only relevant to them in the sense that "optimal" means "how many do we need to not have a non-white majority". And that's a pretty insidious and nonsensical idea that itself seems contrary to the claims about what America is founded on. There isn't supposed to be a racialized conception of what makes one an American these days but that's exactly what is behind these fears about immigration making whites a "minority in their own country".
Generally speaking, more people participating in the economy is better for the economy. Immigrants play a huge role in that, especially in taking up jobs native born Americans will not. In a capitalist country especially, the idea that immigration is only about hitting some ideal range of immigrants that is OK does not pass scrutiny. No one is running the numbers on immigration, thinking "You know, if we let in these 5000 we will exceed our population goals". If the U.S. was anything like out of space that might be a concern. But as we are not, it is not. And it's certainly not a topic that conservatives are specifically concerned about because it's not remotely credible that the U.S. is overpopulated.
I'm not interested in the liberal vs. conservative shouting match, unless it's going to be based on competing plans for how we reach some specific goal. Without such a goal on the table, it's just shouting for the sake of shouting.
Quoting MindForged
Correct, that's what I'm saying too. The immigration issue as currently discussed is based on little more than ego fueled noise.
Quoting MindForged
How many more then? 400 million? 900 million? 4 billion? Shouldn't we have some idea where we're trying to go before we all start prancing about pretending we're interested in immigration?
Likely you will have a population of 400 million or so in 2050. When you have now 360 million, it isn't such a big increase.
Or, is 400 million too many? If so, why?
Should we try to be as big as China? Should we shoot for some other goal population-wise?
How do we craft an intelligent immigration policy if we have no idea what population size we feel is ideal?
You haven't shown that is the goal of immigration though. You said it was the goal, but outside of people very far to the right it's almost undiscussed. Make the case that immigration ought to be discussed with this in mind.
Quoting Jake
You're doing it again. Why are you thinking immigration is fundamentally about the number of people we allow in? You say you're not doing that but then you say the above. Considering how small the number of immigrants coming in actually are, it's just not a relevant question and so framing the immigration debate in terms of "How many should we let in?" is not a serious suggestion. There is not in any reasonably conceivable or likely scenario going to be a jump to 90p million from 350 million.
Well, you could speak about Climate change as it relates to this, given the large population movements it will cause, but the right has completely stalled this as a thing that can be discussed meaningfully in politics.
If we want to have lots more people in America then creating obstacles to immigration doesn't make sense, right?
If we want less people in America, or wish to keep the population the same as it currently is, then creating obstacles to immigration does make sense.
If we don't know what we're trying to achieve, then nobody has a rational case to make regarding immigration, whatever side they are on.
If you can't grasp something this simple, let's just agree to disagree and drop the subject.
The capitalist's reality is that more population = more workforce, and so there will never be, within that framework, a space left to discuss biopolitics in the manner that you wish.
However, the ethno-nationalist's reality is all about that shit! So rejoice!, you can still hope to grow this mindworm further if only you are ready to accept to be an outright outspoken xenophobe calling for full-on supermodernism. You just have to be ready to lose all that potential Koch Bros money for your car-ride ranting podcast. Its a small price to pay to get the right to scream "Fourteen Words!!!" in your local mall. /s
Don't forget more population = more consumers = more aggregate demand.