I had a brilliant and long response yesterday that got deleted before I posted when my computer browser crashed ... on Media Matters website.
You are arguing against multiple strawmen here:
1) “When instead we get arguments against immigration of any kind,”
Strawman alert! That’s not the argument.
2) “Malthusian economics predicts that increasing the population will reduce the wage level”
That’s *not* the claim being made to argue that making 12 million illegal immigrants legal is wrong and will cost taxpayer’s an arm and a leg.
It’s not that any given person is bad.
The claims are that *these* specific immigrants will have a huge fiscal cost to US taxpayers:
http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/SR14.cfm
The reason is that the illegal immigrants are far *less* education, have lower skill levels and are much poorer than
Americans:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/SR9.cfm
As a result we are importing poverting and inviting a huge added cost and expansion to the welfare state.
I have no problem with legal immigration per se.
I have a problem with legalization of 12 million people we did not decide to allow to legally immigrate, both the process and result will be bad for America.
He does in fact argue against legal immigration. His whole point and the only one in dispute here, is that the conventional attitude that "legal is good, illegal is bad" is false. He is wrong, that attitude is not false, it is entirely sound. If you agree with it, then you are disagreeing with him.
He explicitly says that illegals are not as bad as legals because they cost the state less. You explicitly say that illegals are worse than legals. You are not agreeing with him. And I am arguing against his position, not whatever yours may be today.
When a man argues against legal immigration as well as illegal, which the article does, then it is not a strawman to say he is arguing against immigration, not illegality.
When a man explicitly says the problem with immigrants is the extra competition they represent for low wage jobs, as the article clearly does, and furthermore insists explicitly that this problem is just as bad if the immigrants are legal, then yes he is making the claim that legal immigration will lower the wage level.
We've had about 230 years of that experiment and wages continued to go upward with the regularity of the sun coming up in the morning. Because it is economically naive, and inaccurate.
That your argument coincides with the author on one point, but fails to do so in these two critical ones, and that I disagree with him on those two critical points, does not make my arguments against a strawman, nor the article's arguments correct.
Earlier in the thread, the specifically Malthusian proposition was defended repeatedly as supposedly common sense. Clearly, therefore, it is not a strawman, since some people here, in addition to the original author, believe it - while it isn't so.
Now, to your latest and much more limited arguments. That we should fight against amnesty because it undermines the rule of law, and we never agreed to take this group of people, I quite agree. Indeed, my point in fighting against the perception that only those against immigration of any kind are against this bill, is precisely to uphold the "illegal bad, legal good" dicotomy that the article is deliberately trying to undermine.
Second, to the argument that we should prefer more skilled immigrants to less, I quite agree. Although in truth we always need and use a mix of workers. I dislike the specific argument from public finances because it amounts to allowing the left to set people at each other's throats over welfare transfers. That is precisely the divide and rule reaction their politics counts on. I prefer to unite to reduce transfers and increase independence from the state. But it is a minor point, and to first order I agree it is more responsible to add to the population that supports itself and more, given a choice in the matter.
To me, though, the key issue is legality and serious enforcement of existing law. If the economy happened to be in a state in which extra low skilled workers would be helpful, then we could up H2B quotas. That might be as rare as you please, but we only get the option if we have a working legal system. If instead we want to select for skill we can, if we have a working legal system. It may be at some time it is strategically more critical to welcome people displaced by conflicts who took our side in them, as a means of rewarding friends and thwarting enemies.
Whatever policy is expedient, we can only enact it by being in control. Which requires both the sharp distinction "legal good, illegal bad", and serious enforcement. We will not get more of either by instead trying to sell "illegal bad and legal bad too, maybe worse" - which is what the original article is trying to do. Because it won't sell. Because it doesn't deserve to. While "legal good, illegal bad" does.