To not understand the USA and immigration

[Sprockerdilerock]

Forgive me if I'm being a bit thick but I watched a documentary the other day about the Mexican border wall and it got me thinking.

The whole American ethos is meant to be about small government and freedom to make your own fortune etc. So how is it logically consistent for them to put a wall up stopping people from doing just that? Especially when you consider how new the country is - didn't a lot of Americans descend from Europeans being able to roam?

I just dont get it - it seems to be that the more conservative someone is the more anti immigration they are when logically it should be the opposite?

@saltinesandcoffeecups the entire American agricultural economy, the hospitality industry, and the informal care economy (nannies, small day cares, in-home elder care, etc) would completely collapse without illegal immigration. A huge vulnerable population who can be paid less than minimum wage and who have no legal protections against mistreatment at work is HUGELY valuable and is purposely and carefully cultivated.

Cut off a major route for illegal migration, please name me a country that welcomes illegal migrants

Small c conservatives prefer to maintain the status quo in terms of power balance and traditions, that's going to be anti-immigration that they can't exploit (not that progressives are much better on that front). Small government isn't a universal American ethos, though is a popular part of American mythology.

the US was built with legal immigrants and to this day welcomes legal immigrants.

Don't piss on me and tell me it's warm rain. How the US was built was not by what anyone would consider immigration. It was built through colonization and conquest, not immigration.

Colonization and immigration are not the same thing. Many of the things early colonizers did wasn't legal in the nations they were in. There were many issues with Europeans marrying into American Indigenous nations and then trying to use European laws on land ownership to make land claims with their wives' father's died - completely ignoring the laws of the nation they were in. That alongside making promises to both sides in a war and breaking all for land grabs was how early parts of the nation was built on. One of the earliest nations to try to negotiate with English settlers and let them marry in - the Piscataway - was royally fucked over in both of these ways, had agreement after agreement broken, and still can't even get federal recognition today.

Why don’t the countries that have mass exodus’ to the US do something for their own citizens.

Governments are not their people. I'd have thought that COVID would have taught people that we can end up royally fucked over by our governments no matter what we want to do for each other.

@Sparklesocks umm ok then

@Wroxie I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written. However I don’t think the answer is to turn the border into a turnstile for illegal immigration. That will just make the problem worse. The way to fix things, IMO, is to let those industries fail then to reevaluate the true need for immigration and to adjust the policies to accommodate the true need. Right now the problem with that need for labor can easily be ignored because there is a steady stream of cheap labor willing to live a shadow life for the wages.

Don’t you think it would be better to be welcomed in the front door vs. crawling in a window?

@BiBabbles well if during the colonial period there were laws broken, surely it was the colonizing countries that allowed it to happen. IIRC, all it took was some cheap tobacco and cotton to get the high and mighty to look the other way. Right?

This struck me when I watched Hamilton. How did those Americans with all their noble hopes and ideas become these Americans?!

@AllTheWayFromLondonDAMN

This struck me when I watched Hamilton. How did those Americans with all their noble hopes and ideas become these Americans?!

@AllTheWayFromLondonDAMN

Help me out ... which country has open borders and no immigration requirements?

UK...hmm that’s not one
Canada...nope not there either
Mexico... hmm, have to take a test there
I know Finland! ... shoot language requirements.

Ok, we’ll I must just be bad at google today, surely all of looking down at the US have a list of all of these utopian borderless countries.

Brown people are immigrants

White people are expats

Brits spent centuries invading and living in other countries and expecting to be welcomed often overthrowing the Government to arrange it

But they take great offence when others have the temerity to rock up in the UK

The USA was entirely built on racism
the original rich whites
pitted poor whites against poor blacks
and slaves
and it has never stopped

eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/01/14/black-america-history-social-economic-inequalities/5759328002/

I’ll just leave this here...

www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/

The United States has more immigrants than any other country in the world. Today, more than 40 million people living in the U.S. were born in another country, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s migrants. The population of immigrants is also very diverse, with just about every country in the world represented among U.S. immigrants.

While immigration has been at the forefront of a national political debate, the U.S. public holds a range of views about immigrants living in the country. Overall, a majority of Americans have positive views about immigrants. About two-thirds of Americans (66%) say immigrants strengthen the country “because of their hard work and talents,” while about a quarter (24%) say immigrants burden the country by taking jobs, housing and health care.

@RickiTarr

The core beliefs of the US swivelled quite dramatically very early in the twentieth century.

Newcomers are often the quickest to pull up the drawbridge and prevent others from following. Many of the poorest people in the US are those from groups that have been there for thousands of years.

@saltinesandcoffeecups I wasn’t especially talking about immigration, more all their high minded ideals for this new country which now seem a bit redundant in the age of Trump. Although obviously Hamilton does have a lot to say immigration, I don’t think even the most ardent of scholars of early modern America would say that their views on immigration are desirable or achievable in the 21st century.

The reality of the USA and immigration
www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#:~:text=Immigrants%20and%20their%20U.S.%2Dborn,about%2036%20percent%20by%202065.

I have mates who were Mayflower families
mine was a decade or two later

I'm not aware of any countries that have completely open borders.

But the whole culture and political landscape of the US seems to hinge on freedom (dont they call it the land of the free?), I just cant quite reconcile in my mind how on the one hand they can be for minimal government intervention and people being able to do as they please, yet on the other try to stop citizens of other countries making a go of things in the same way to speak.

I can almost understand the opposition to immigration in more socialist countries as more immigrants = more people for the government to support.

Thats interesting @saltinesandcoffeecups! It's a shame the media focuses in on the Wall etc rather than stats like that.

I think there was a shift in the 'American Dream' around the point of the end of their industrial revolution. At that point, the new dream becomes impossible for most to achieve (or else it becomes impossible for the few who have achieved it to maintain it...) as it becomes 'work hard and you will succeed' and founded around capitalism.

Free imigration works with the traditional, more pastoral American dream, but it stops working with an industrial or post-industrial American dream.

Your knowledge of American mythology seems a bit sketchy and the mythos is a far cry from reality saltinesandcoffeecups

Europeans didn't immigrate and follow the laws of American Indigenous nations they immigrated to as you keep saying that immigrants should (hint: claiming refugee status at the border is meant to be legal, but the US keeps ignoring that). I would think that was common knowledge though more often the myths like to pretend that American Indigenous peoples had no laws. Those stories are wrong. A lot of American Indigenous leaders did some fucked up things to try to make deals with Europeans, but nothing in what happened during colonization could be described as legal immigration.

Those colonizers 'crawled through the window', provoked wars between different nations, arranged deals and broke them, and raped little girls and claimed them as their wives and then tried to make claims on the lands of their families. That's and war is what the US is built on (a country that's less than 250 years old, has been at war for over 220 of them).

As someone who is the result of all that who immigrated out of the US (I can "look down" on my birth nation all I fucking want, thanks - if they're going to keep tracking my bank accounts, I can discuss the reality of their history), I am regularly amazed how much people out of the US - who weren't raised with those stories being pounded into their heads for years - somehow still buy into the myths they pump out. Like, how can you look at US history, see all the dead bodies and destroyed & erased nations, and say that it's built on legal immigration. Why kiss their ass, they don't care about you.

Ellis Island started in 1892, Angel Island on 1910 - even in the US, immigration control by Americans is comparatively new historically (when anyone else tried to control it there, they killed them - that's a large chunk of why they've been at war so long). Immigration control period as we have today is historically and socially very modern.

And don't forget about when the US government expelled Latinos just because they could - the impact of "Operation Wetback" people, many of them US citizens, forcefully deported to random parts of Mexico (even those that weren't of Mexican descent) - we're talking millions of people. But sure, tell me how much I'm meant to love America and appreciate their love of immigrants.

@Sprockerdilerock

Gotcha, I see what you are saying now. Individual freedom is a basic tenet in the US, but that generally only extends to citizens. Realistically we have to control the borders and have some common sense about immigration. I mean, sure it would be great for anyone who wants to come live here to do so, but it’s just not feasible.

At the end of of the day a country is just a pile of resources, right? Land, infrastructure, an economy, people, etc. Overwhelming those resources can happen if it’s not managed.

America is imperfect and I would never claim it is superior to other nations but the anti US rhetoric that is so popular baffles me-there are 300 million citizens and surely you cannot think every single citizen is in lock step with the current administration? I don't think the pilgrims who murdered native Americans are still alive so why hold it against us? I disagreed with the stupid border wall-it doesn't work,is a waste of money and defiles the land. I'm counting the minutes until Biden takes office. Surely those of you who are so anti American realize we are huge trading partners with the UK and your strongest ally? We don't have a deep hatred for the English,Welsh or Scots or Irish,why is it so popular to hate America?

@EKGEMS

America is imperfect and I would never claim it is superior to other nations but the anti US rhetoric that is so popular baffles me-there are 300 million citizens and surely you cannot think every single citizen is in lock step with the current administration? I don't think the pilgrims who murdered native Americans are still alive so why hold it against us? I disagreed with the stupid border wall-it doesn't work,is a waste of money and defiles the land. I'm counting the minutes until Biden takes office. Surely those of you who are so anti American realize we are huge trading partners with the UK and your strongest ally? We don't have a deep hatred for the English,Welsh or Scots or Irish,why is it so popular to hate America?

I don’t think it’s hatred? It’s possible to identify failings or issues with a country without ‘hating’ the people who live there. I live in the U.K. but fully accept we have our own shortcomings and I only really have a passing understanding of the terrible things the British empire did - I don’t take it as a personal insult when others highlight those.

@BiBabbles

Your knowledge of American mythology seems a bit sketchy and the mythos is a far cry from reality saltinesandcoffeecups

Europeans didn't immigrate and follow the laws of American Indigenous nations they immigrated to as you keep saying that immigrants should (hint: claiming refugee status at the border is meant to be legal, but the US keeps ignoring that). I would think that was common knowledge though more often the myths like to pretend that American Indigenous peoples had no laws. Those stories are wrong. A lot of American Indigenous leaders did some fucked up things to try to make deals with Europeans, but nothing in what happened during colonization could be described as legal immigration.

Those colonizers 'crawled through the window', provoked wars between different nations, arranged deals and broke them, and raped little girls and claimed them as their wives and then tried to make claims on the lands of their families. That's and war is what the US is built on (a country that's less than 250 years old, has been at war for over 220 of them).

As someone who is the result of all that who immigrated out of the US (I can "look down" on my birth nation all I fucking want, thanks - if they're going to keep tracking my bank accounts, I can discuss the reality of their history), I am regularly amazed how much people out of the US - who weren't raised with those stories being pounded into their heads for years - somehow still buy into the myths they pump out. Like, how can you look at US history, see all the dead bodies and destroyed & erased nations, and say that it's built on legal immigration. Why kiss their ass, they don't care about you.

Ellis Island started in 1892, Angel Island on 1910 - even in the US, immigration control by Americans is comparatively new historically (when anyone else tried to control it there, they killed them - that's a large chunk of why they've been at war so long). Immigration control period as we have today is historically and socially very modern.

And don't forget about when the US government expelled Latinos just because they could - the impact of "Operation Wetback" people, many of them US citizens, forcefully deported to random parts of Mexico (even those that weren't of Mexican descent) - we're talking millions of people. But sure, tell me how much I'm meant to love America and appreciate their love of immigrants.

So those filthy colonist were Americans... funny I was taught they were English, Dutch, French, Spanish, and Mexican. They seemed to become Americans only after they formed a government all their own. So sure anything after that can be blamed on them... but before that seems to be the result of all of those greedy countries I mentioned.

You have a weird hang up over paying US taxes. There is a really simple solution to your problem. You just need to go down to any US Embassy and turn in your passport and formally renounce your US citizenship.

It’ seems pretty straightforward... travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Renunciation-US-Nationality-Abroad.html

Costs like $2k & 5 years of tax returns to renounce IIRC.

Well surely the 5 years of tax returns should be no problem. And I would expect that $2K should be offset by not having to pay US taxes anymore.

And yet, the UK's immigration policy is far more racist / xenophobic. Those in glass houses.

@BrandyandDeath

And yet, the UK's immigration policy is far more racist / xenophobic. Those in glass houses.

Am immigration policy cannot be racist unless it favours those of a particular race. You may think it’s too harsh or limiting but it’s not racist

@BiBabbles. I sympathize about the tax filing, my BIL has to do it even though he hasn’t lived in the US for over a decade.

But, he’s also just received a Covid stimulus check from the American government. The embassy contacted him and he was very taken aback! You might want to look into it as you may also be eligible. Biden’s hoping to offer more relief to citizens so it could be worth having!