Immigration cannot be a permanent solution, because eventually everyone will have immigrated.

Immigration is basically arbitrage on living conditions, the US could directly institute “compassionate slavery” and many very poor countries would gladly sell themselves and their children into it.

In fact, there are likely people who would rather live in US prisons than in the country they’re currently in.

We're very fortunate that the high birth rates are in places where the people are desperately trying to get out and to immigrate to rich countries.

For this reason, we will never have "everyone has immigrated" be a serious problem.

Also, legal immigration has been down under Trump and has not bounced back to Obama levels under Biden.

Why are we fortunate, because this bandaid solution can continue to work? Even though it’s not a morally good solution?

Never is a terribly strong word. Even those places see a drop in birthrates.

What I worry about is that the same people who call for more immigration also call for higher wages and better working conditions for blue collar labor.

Increased immigration from poorer countries only results in lower wages and less leverage to negotiate for the most vulnerable. Regardless of whatever laws you try to bring forth to counter this, you’ll be fighting a permanent uphill battle against physical reality.

The modern progressive attitude is to simply be for everything indiscriminately, without regard for the contradictions.

And yet historically, the period with the highest immigration to the US, roughly 1880-1920, was also a period of rising wages, not lower wages, as well as generally improving living conditions.

which has nothing to do with immigration, and just with the post-industrialisation boom.

growth was so large that society could accommodate such immigration rates

  "Increased immigration from poorer countries only results in lower wages and less leverage to negotiate for the most vulnerable."

Nonsense, given that the "most vulnerable" -- by a large margin -- are the people inside the poor country who have now been unbanned from the landmass you've declared that you own at the barrel of a gun.

I'm worried about how this reality is leading to the formation of a modern slavery system. That might seem hyperbolic but I can assure all who read this, it is not.

In the US especially, it cannot be forgotten why people from Central and South America are flooding the southern border. It's because of the US's meddling in the affairs of other nations, particularly via the War on Drugs.

So if the immigrants are supposed to take these public sector jobs because the current citizens refuse to do them, it would be considerably more ideal if they were to not take them under duress, which the US actively caused.

Why do people insist on calling something slavery when it clearly isn't slavery? You say something is bad without lying about what it is.

Its true we’re working towards more of a indentured model.

Astute observation, but at the same time it's the lesser evil to allow them to take that job. Let's not allow misguided compassion to do real world harm to the people to whom that compassion is directed.

If the US is supporting the worse conditions that make taking the job the lesser evil, and benefiting from the resultant labor (as parent comment claims), then it isn't really compassionate to support that system, as the system depends largely on suppressing quality of life elsewhere rather than creating opportunity. An analogy is that it might be the lessor evil for an African centuries ago to get on a slave ship rather than to be murdered on the spot. That doesn't make supporting slavery compassionate.

I disagree. You can support immigrants being allowed to work without supporting all parts of the system!

Cause and effect is what matters. Not some abstract purity test of "supporting a system" that's totally disconnected from actual moral outcomes. If you advocate a policy that blocks immigrants from working in the US, you are directly causing their suffering. If your position aligns closely with ethnonationalists, it's time for some deep introspection. This is malevolence masquerading as compassion.

> You can support immigrants being allowed to work without supporting all parts of the system!

This is my exact position. You are assuming I am against immigration. In the big picture, the system that makes immigration is not compassionate, but it would also not be compassionate in the small picture to stop immigration.

I've seen that argument (the one you're replying to) many times online and I never understand it. In the same breath people say that immigrants choosing to immigrate will have low wages and poor working conditions. Alright, but that's no secret, they know that and it's still better than where they came from, or they wouldn't move! Keeping them out hurts them or forces them into illegally immigrating.

The America First, America for Americans type people at least have a position that is coherent even if it's not compassionate.

The anti immigrant liberals for whom class solidarity ends at the border just don't make sense to me.

It's a purity thing. The left and right have their own notions of purity that have nothing to do with a deep understanding of morality. If these notions of purity are violated, they feel disgust. For the right, everyone knows what those notions of purity are (racial purity, bodily purity). For the left, hiring low wage workers is one of the triggering impurities, even if doing so leads to demonstrably utilitarian outcomes in the form of reduced suffering. So it's just people trying to avoid disgust triggers. Nothing to do with morality.

The US isn’t meddling in Central American affairs by banning drugs here in the US. Although it does affect them! They should also feel bad for allowing poison to be created and sold from their country.

I think you might want to do some background reading on the US meddling in South America. It's uh...enlightening.