An interesting post from a comment on a WP article on immigration:

[JohnSJ]

"The charts are fundamentally flawed since the article doesn't mention the impact of covid at all. Or the fact the more Americans are not willing to do physical labor that requires them to leave the comfort of their couch. We need the people who will do the hard physical jobs.

Few points:
1. The US had a functional seasonal workers program for decades. Workers were allowed to come in on a temp workers card for seasonal work or household work. The catch was that they could not bring their spouses or children with them. That meant the mostly male farm workers would rotate home to spend time with their families. This was ended sometime around 40+ years ago because of terrible working conditions, low pay of the seasonal workers and growing unemployment of US workers in the Rust Belt.
Then immigration became a political football.
2. Political instability in central America in the 1980's led to a flood of families fleeing murder squads.
3. NAFTA was passed in the 1990's to spur industrial growth in Central and South America. It worked for a while. Immigration to the US dropped, people had good jobs with good pay in Central America and could stay with their families.
5. Those NAFTA jobs then moved to Asia 10 years later, leaving large numbers of unemployed workers south of the border. The economies of those countries were shaken when the jobs left, and many became unable to stem the drug lords, the violence, the poverty, the dictatorships.
6. Many of the current illegal immigrants are coming from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. They are flown by smuggling cartels to Central America and then dropped off to make it over on their own. Whose is funding those flights?
7. If the border was totally shut down it would create a crisis in Mexico that could destabilize their government. It would also make it extremely problematic for legitimate green card holders to cross the border to see their families.

This is a pin hole look at a huge international problem."

This was the article the comment was based on:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/02/11/trump-biden-immigration-border-compared/

[BootinUp]

1. Nice summary. I guess that nothing is going

To happen until maybe after the election. Or do people think there is still a chance for a deal?

[JohnSJ]

4. Nope, I think you are right, nothing will happen until after the election.

[dalton99a]

2. WP article:

https://archive.ph/2bq7R

[JohnSJ]

3. Thanks

[Johnny2X2X]

5. Global Warming plays a huge role

Subsistance farming in the mountains of Central America, believe it or not, relies on great dust storms kick up by large herds of animals in Africa. Nutrient rich dust is carried by the winds across the Atlantic ocean and into the mountains to make the ground there fertile. Global warming has shut down or lessened these air currents and the ground in the hills and mountains no longer grows as much food making subsistance farming les possible. Millions of farmers have fled the hills to the cities in search of work, the cities became overcrowded and the infrastructure is taxed. This contributes to the crime and violence that people are fleeing to come to the US.

[unblock]

6. And republicans blaring about an "open border" gives the green light for more immigrants to come

[betsuni]

7. K&R

[Voltaire2]

8. The WOD has caused most of the ongoing political instability.

It hasn't stopped. We are the primary cause of the emergence of narco-states and the disintegration those states trying to prevent their emergence. The political instability of the 1980's was us again, destabilizing any government we decided was too socialist to tolerate.

Actually shutting the border down would not only crash the Mexican economy, it would severely damage our economy and undo the effort to move some of our global manufacturing out of China. It is simply a stupid idea.