And by immigrants I really mean immigrants: you don’t have the nationality and live in the country = you’re an immigrant.

I keep reading about the plans of parties to kick out all immigrants, stop letting in any, and some parties even advocate to revoke dual-nationalities and kick those people out too. I’ve never really understood what the point of it is and have trouble imagining what the effects of such actions would be within the country.

  • atro_city@fedia.ioOP
    91·
    8 days ago

    I’ve been told (verbatim):

    The lower classes are struggling because immigrants have lowered the accepted pay below minimum wage. They accept any job and are willing to accept worse working conditions because it’s better than what they know. The local population thus cannot compete. Once the immigrants are kicked out, low paying jobs will be forced to increase their wages and working conditions to make it palatable to the locals.

    It kind of makes sense, until you start asking questions like:

    • why would the wages go up?
    • why do you assume working conditions would get better?
    • if the wages went up, wouldn’t the prices go up and the lower classes still struggle?

    Then I just get “we’ll see, but first we have to get them out” at which point the discussion ends, because there’s no discussing when somebody’s changed their mind. I am curious though, maybe studies have been done on this? Maybe there are serious projects on the effects of banning immigration?

    • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
      14·
      8 days ago

      The actual response to that should be ‘okay, then let’s force those companies to pay better and improve working solutions for everyone including immigrants’.

      But yeah you’re not gonna convince racists.

      • Asafum@lemmy.world
        9·
        8 days ago

        And magically they’ll argue against their first point right away.

        “No, no, no, you can’t raise the minimum wage or everything will get more expensive! We need a class of people to be exploited so I can get my cheap cheeseburger!!”

      • atro_city@fedia.ioOP
        3·
        8 days ago

        Local companies cannot compete because of globalism, we must ban imports from China and then local companies can compete.

        That’s the furthest I’ve gotten with these people. It’s why I’m interested in what kind of other ideas they have about how the world works.

        • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          1·
          7 days ago

          Targeted import taxes to compensate for companies getting subsidies from their government fosters competition. Blanket banning all imports removes competition and results in poor quality expensive products. Good for the local companies but bad for consumers.

          But “targeted” is too complicated for many people. A ban is easier to understand, and gets a lot more vibe support.

    • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.onlineEnglish
      7·
      8 days ago

      They don’t mean it. They just want someone for the working class to blame. They need immigrants to work for cheap and to only be here during their “productive” years and they need someone to blame for low wages and lack of local jobs.

      Who is paying them under the table? Doesn’t that mean they are not paying their share of payroll taxes, wsib etc? Why not crack down on this?

      Who let them into the country? Was it because they couldn’t find local people willing to take low paying jobs? This takes both the company and the government to make happen.

      Will off shoring end? Not likely…

      Will foreign companies be discouraged from investing in the country? Absolutely not.

      If there is no one for the poorest and most exploited working class american to feel superior to, will he continue to buy into the ‘american dream’?