US/immigration

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About

United States Immigration policy became a hot topic in the spring of 2006 (there's some specific history which I don't have time to research -- there was a bill introduced (by GOP?) which would have apparently made it very difficult for existing immigrant workers; this led to rallies nationwide in support of said workers and against said bill, etc...).

Although the anti-immigrant sentiment never entirely went away in the meantime, it surfaced again during and after the 2010 elections as conservative politicians (now politically dominant) demonized Mexican immigrants as scapegoats for the state of the economy in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, focusing anger on destructive immigration "reform" proposals rather than on any measures likely to fix the problem.

In general, anti-immigration sentiment has become a recurring theme of red American politics, fueled largely by propaganda in the form of a number of myths about immigrants.

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Conclusions

It seems likely that anti-immigration propaganda is due largely to the need to prevent workers from moving freely. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA are typically motivated by the desire for large businesses to be better able to take advantage of labor cost-differentials between countries. If laborers are given the same freedom to cross borders in search of higher wages, those cost-differentials tend to even out as labor becomes scarce in lower-paying countries.

Opinion

Will someone please explain to me (a) what business we have, as a nation composed almost entirely of immigrants, setting restrictions on which other countries we will allow to contribute to our population, and (b) in what way immigrants from any particular country or ethnic group have ever been a problem, once they arrived? --Woozle 15:31, 20 May 2006 (EDT)

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