Right off the bat averaging from 1925 to 1965 seems strange... great depression and war and what-not... "golden years (4 decades?) of immigration," yeah well, I guess thats a matter of opinion (interned Japanese probably would disagree, for example). He then proceeds to comment that immigrants were "never so welcome" and "never did so well" as in this 40 year period, which is the polar opposite of something anyone giving a talk about numbers and statistics would say. He avoids any citation and, importantly, doesn't present any statements within the context of the times (US industrial age expansion, beginning of the corporation, etc.).

So at one minute in I'm already questioning everything this guy has to say because of his sweeping, unsubstantiated, 'those were the days...and those days were obviously only great become we had just a few immigrants' comments.

He then proceeds to show growth charts illustrating immigration (which is 0 at 1965?) doubling the birth rate of American children, and somehow doubling the strain on hopitals and sewer systems, despite being maybe 5-10% more people... at which point I called bullshit and stopped writing this comment.

Bullshit. Utter stupid bullshit.

- No mention of socio-economic factors that lead to large influx into US.
- No mention of the creation of a larger tax-base in the illegal to legal migrate status.
- No mention of the effects of NAFTA on the reasons of Reconquista.
- No mention or discussion as to why cheaper labor is favored by US companies.
- No real discussion on why the US middle class is slowly dissappearing.
- No mention of how the goverment cuts federal funding for social programs, or the regressive taxation system.

Finally I mean honestly, 1900 to 1965? People were welcomed? That's a awfully nice way to wash clean what incoming Irish, Italian, Sicilian, Polish and many other people felt each time they have tried to integrate into the society. Looking at immigration just using numbers is inanely stupid honestly.

hey farhad, high-five!

can new submitters comment on their own submission?


I'm voting for this but in no way endorse its content.

And its to badhe doesn't talk about illegal immigration, since thats what I thought was what the hoopla is all about.

I do find it interesting that he is very careful to give the impression that he is not attacking immigrants. On Google video, the website refers you to www.numbersusa.com , which I only gave a cursory overlook. I don't necessarily agree with his aims, in fact it's very difficult to determine what part this plays in the larger immigration debate. I will say that one of the little discussed aspects of immigration is the effect that legal immigration has on the labor market in technology-related fields, for example electrical engineering.

American corporations have succesfully argued that the US must increase the number of H1-B visas issued to skilled workers to keep up with the demand for tech-sector jobs. While I can't speak for the market as a whole, the reality is that migrant labor has the same effect in the communicationslabor market as it does in construction or agriculture. Wages throughout the industry are depressed, and I'll give you a specific example involving my father. He is an independent contractor with a Master's degree in RF engineering, and he competes with workers that will work for 40% of what he charges. Some would say that the market dictates the wages or that he overcharges but the only way he can compete is by being substantially more skilled than the majority of the engineers in the market. He frequently will be hired later to fix a project that went to foreign contractors who are able to underbid him dramatically.

I think it raises a number of questions, beginning with the obvious one. Are the American people benefiting by importimng advanced degree holders when there may be no need for them in the labor market? I understand that corporations are designed to run efficiently, not to manage our economy. What are the consequences of the disappearance of the middle class? This year the savings rate in this country was negative, and there is a looming housing crisis. I suspect that the producer of this video is not an honest broker but I am curious to hear a sincere debate on immigration policy in this country. It is currently hurting both the migrants (moreso illegals in manual labor than professional-class migrants) and it is certainly hurting our economy. That conversation should certainly also encompass our social safety net in this country (Medicare, Social Security, the lack of health insurance by many Americans) and our national debt. I am by no means a nativist, nor do I think we need to close our borders but I do believe in results-oriented policies dictating effective government. I truly enjoy VideoSift because I believe it's one of the rare places where I experience an open exchange of ideas.

great first post , justinianrex.

And the questions that you raise about the effect of legal immigration or the importing of foreign talent on the national economy are very good ones. I do not think that the federal government begins to solve the problem by merely readjusting the quotas; American corporations will merely be further isolated in an artifical way from the realities of the global market. The problem to me seems to be inherent in corporate form. A few persons (Dick Grasso, anyone?) are rewarded beyond any measure of reality for promoting a sort of efficiency that does not realistically reward the worker. I would love to see aggressive executive compensation caps in this country.

As far as illegal immigration goes . . .

Full disclosure: I have done work for the Office of Immigration Litigation (writing briefs and kicking people out of the country). From that perspective, I can tell you that enforcement alone (fences,laws that are impossible for poor immigrants to navigate, border armies) particularly in the piecemeal and uncoordinated way that it is done, is not a complete or even beneficial answer to the illegal immigration policy problem. It is a loose band-aid.

As other posters in this thread have pointed out, NumbersUSA's view of a golden age of immigration history is very, very strange. If the speaker had lived in a port city in the early part of the century, I would bet that he may not have been so sunny and sanguine.

Speaking from my perspective: I believe there is alot more the to the immigration issue then the media paints.

First of all the reason illegal immigrants are hired is because they offer cheaper psychical labor, this is true in many of the border areas. This is also true in Montreal, where they are usually hired as cooks and waiters and other menial jobs. They simply have no choice in arguing for a better wage. Thus they tend to live in squalid conditions, most of them desire to stay in the country so they do not commit crimes.

Furthermore some of these immigrants who do hold advanced degrees hold non-US or non-EU degrees, most of these are from Indian, Ex-USSR, Japanese, Chinese and many other university diplomas. Even if they hold years and years of experience above their peers, it doesn't matter their alien degree somehow invalidates their knowledge.

This is especially true in the medical field which I am more familiar with, they are required to write lengthy exams to re-certify their knowledge. These cost alot of money, require several stages and act as a deterrent. The immigrants don't hold the finical ability to sustain that and thus get jobs as taxi drivers and cooks and such. I once got a taxi ride with a neurosurgeon who graduated in Moscow.

Now pardon me but how does somebody who works as a neurosurgeon one day, takes a flight and then suddenly loses all knowledge so much so that he needs to be re-certified? There are other ways in the medical profession that such cases could be handled by hospitals and such, if the doctors were simply flagged for a extensionary period or re-treated as interns within the hospital system. Doctors know Doctors. Simply.

This is a dire problem in Canada, doctors here don't command the wage they do in the US. So they get a state-funded medical education here, and then brain drain occurs to the US. Someone who is graduating in the medical field wants to work in NY or Toronto not in Sydney, Nova Scotia or some forest in Quebec. Meanwhile you have this pool of immigrants would would be willing to do so if it means a life in the west in legal status practicing their profession. So right now every doctor I see in Canada am a lil' suspicious of because it kinda means they didn't make the grade and made it out.

What am alluding to is that the discussion of how immigrations really works is not really addressed in the media. It's always painting the illegal immigrant issue as some plague that hits these green lands of ours. There more issues to it then we really dare to address. The labor market wants the wages to be high, this goes against the needs of the corporate sector to depress wages and reap a profit. And the goverment, well they just don't even discuss the issue, as long as the lobby wing doesn't complain. The voters they might as well be ignored.

A lot of interesting points and ideas. Corporations tending to have a vested interest in their own prosperity over anything else (surprise!) seems to be a point of consensus.

Some very complicated problems are all tied up in this debate. If I were a politician I would avoid it like the plague. An interesting baby step would be capping executive incentive and pay packages, like rickegee mentioned

I'm personally a fan of pointing to the underfunded public education system in the US... but that just illustrates how far reaching this debate can meander.

Living in a southern US border state, one can see the argument for snapping the border shut to Mexico, thank's GW. The Bush Push for Nafta....language,border,culture....disappearing, will net the US 3rd world status quicker than likker.

The equiv. of opening the Canadian border to the northern US, those newbies without cash, skills, or obligations to anyone but their relatives who, sit back and wait for the tax-free dollars to come in care packages......Today in America, shit, just get pregnant in any country, and drop it here.....BOOM U.S. Citizen.....this is death to any Nation...Canada stopped that shit real quick with Chinese influx, the legeslation drafted in Parliament by a Chinese legislator, who became a citizen the CORRECT and LEGAL way

Love Mexico, but love the US more. In the last 30 years, this state has been shat upon by Mexico, its peoples who demand entitlement without even the responsibility of learning english....it's fucking wrong, and will mean a race-baiting opportunistic clusterfuck for the future, brain-dead and sensibility-free, generations of fodder....doomed are the anglo, indian killers, one day I'll no doubt wipe my ass with my US passport, and head back to the land of volcanoes......or stay here and learn to read maps, menus, and media, en espanol, while looking at pastel stuccos and lean-to's, and a landfill in every cul-de-sac and parking lot.....Thanks Mexico!! You guys Rock!!!

illegals should be given an IQ test, if they fall below 100 then they should be sterilized and sent back.
This accomplishes two thing:
1. An incentive for the dumb ones not to enter the country
2. Once the pan-american union is established inferior genome cleansing will have already gotten a head start in el mexico.

To assert that this is not based on racist or inflammatory claims is not completely true, while he does not use words such as wet-back, he does talk about danger to "our social fabric" which is a bit hard to understand an any other context. I also noticed the excessive use of audience shots of non-white people, even though the pan of the audience shows them to be predominately white. They show the same black guy nodding his head three or four times, why the preoccupation, if not attempting to distract from the issue of racism?

The racist undertone is very strong, he goes to great lengths to not use offensive words, and to claim it is all "just numbers", but he sneaks in lots of scare tactics. He also interestingly groups native born descendants of new immigrants with immigrants, but does not count native born descendants of previous immigrants (everyone in the US) with immigrants. This categorization conflicts with his contention of risk to society, as all people born in the US socially acclimate very quickly to US culture, the acclimation of immigrants is, in fact, the basis of US culture.