> They haven't done anything wrong but people will have a better situtation

that is presuming the outcome no? Japan and Korea have almost no immigrants, and their situation is not better by any metric. Longer work hours, lower salaries, higher concentration of wealth, stagnated currency, potential demographic collapse, not enough young people to pay pensions....

Like we have examples of what that looks like and it aint the utopia you think it is. America is already in a trillion debt hole, how is shrinking the work force going to help pay for it?

> We want them to work hard, for rewards that we consider beneath us

As an immigrant with a Masters degree and a salary well in the top percentile of income, I don't think you know how many of us have higher education degrees and form part of VCs, start ups, hospitals, law firms...

The idea that immigration is a wage supression tool doesn't really jive with the percentage of immigrant students in Ivy League schools kicking the ass of many american born kids

> Pro-immigrant does not mean people want immigrants as equals, in fact the opposite.

Idk man there is a gigantic statue in the harbour of NY that claims exactly that. There are countless of political positions that criticise modern nation states, from both right wing and left wing prespective. Digital nomads are libertarians that complain about needing passports and visas, meanwhile many leftwing people find borders to be unfair lottery style barriers to human freedom and equality. From the economic right wing the two states with the highest GDP are the two with the highest number of immigrants both currently and historically. From the more woke left wing perspective you have people who think the American hegemonic century deserves to accept people that have been denied opportunities at the expense of the USA's economy, like active reparations.

You can argue it from both sides of the spectrum for both moral, economic, philosophical reasons. Meritocracy, Justice, Freedom or pure economic performance all are presented.

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consensus1 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Your heavily restricted, highly educated, legal immigration examples are a tiny fraction of what immigration is in the US. The tens of millions of unskilled illegals allowed into the country is a wage suppression tool.

	▲	Arkhaine_kupo an hour ago \| parent [-]
		The peak of immigration was 2.4 million, maybe the tens of millions of non existent people would certainly affect wages. But maybe decades of anti unionisation efforts, manufacturing displacement and lack of updates to minimimum wage, healthcare provisions and general safety net have a higher impact on keeping wages low. Idk, the possibility of dying without access to a doctor if you dont work might keep people from asking for a higher salary if you think about it for even a fraction of a second. Also there are 1 million concurrent international students while on average the USA receives around 1.5 million immigrants per year. which means that there are a 60/40 split. With many students returning to their countries but similarly many legal immigrants having temporal visas like H1B and conditional stays (marital, family visa, contract visa or refugee visas). The percentage of immigrants is also been stable since the 1870s around 12-15%. There was a depression during WW2 with it going as low as 7% in the early 50s, which has little to do with immigration and more to do with millions of deaths globally. Also it rebounded to 13% quite quickly and has been there since the 60s with no meaningful relationship between wages and immigration numbers > Your heavily restricted, highly educated, legal immigration The two countries with the highest immigration to the USA behind Mexico (which is obvious due to proximity and opportunity), are India and China. The best mathematician in america is an immigrant in Terrence Tao. The biggest tech companies are headed by immigrants or sons of immigrants (satya nadella, elon musk, jobs, Lisa Su). Like you can argue that the GDP going up is responsibility of immigrants as much as you can argue that there is wage suppression due to immigration