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Comment by andrewla | Hacker News Reader

The article is paywalled but it seems the gist is that by restricting immigration and escalating deportation, we risk population decrease.

What I find amusing about this is that it is roughly equivalent to saying that the United States needs to conquer new territory to survive. Need to bring more people under our thumb.

This is definitely "dying empire" thinking.

Worth saying that I do not agree with this. I think in many ways our cardinal sin is that in the interest of legibility (especially for tax purposes) we've regulated our ability to employee people and to get work to an absolutely insane degree. To such a degree in fact, that much of our economy relies on having a source of "black market" labor and indentured servitude in the guise of immigration.

Where we flirt with danger is that we look at one side of this equation, the immigration side, but not the other, the labor side.

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The recent episode of The Daily gives a prime example of this,

I was seeing people getting hired and getting paid a lot less than me. And when I inquired about it, my boss would say, well, they’re less expensive. I don’t have to pay workman’s comp on them. I don’t have to pay general liability insurance on them. If they get hurt, they’ll go to the emergency room. No sweat off my back. And I was getting paid less and less, because I was competing against people who were hired because it cost less to hire them or employ them... It’s illegal, by the way. But people are getting away with it and I’m competing against them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/podcasts/the-daily/why-tr...

I think he unfairly places the blame on the immigrants themselves, when the true culprits are the employers and system of black market employment.

Wanting them gone isn't the same as putting the blame on them. It isn't a personality conflict or a troubled relationship; immigrants shouldn't feel guilty for wanting to stay and the people competing with them should feel guilty for wanting them to go. Or rather, who cares? Shouldn't people be allowed to have their inner states to themselves? Can't we own anything? How did a discussion about labor exploitation turn into a discussion about feelings?

And why is it a discussion about some workers' feelings vs. other workers' feelings? How did the boss manage to completely recuse himself?

I don't think he blames the immigrants specifically, so much as illegal immigration as an institution. The only "punishment" that most people want for illegal immigrants who have committed no crimes other than the immigration violation itself is for them to be deported, which really does not seem like a punishment at all -- it's just undoing the criminal act. Like if you stole some money from a bank and then had to give it back, but otherwise did not have to face prosecution.

Because what can an illegal immigrant do? They could in theory just rely on social services and entitlements, but I don't think anyone (including the immigrants themselves, for the most part) really wants that. They want to work, and to make money, and the law makes it very hard to do so legally, so they work illegally.

All the barriers you mention are things that we put in place to "protect" workers, but at the same time create a black market that undercuts those very workers.

As for the employers, sure, they are culprits here, but would you rather have them let the immigrants starve? That also does not seem to serve any social good. As for not paying workman's comp, for example, there is already enough paperwork and bureaucracy involved in hiring a legal worker where there are systems that support and administer those programs. If you wanted to offer a workman's comp lookalike for illegal labor as a social service, then that would multiply the effort and cost by a huge factor.

There are such deep contradictions in these thoughts. You think that the illegal immigrant is going to starve without the criminal employer? When just a second ago you were saying they should be deported, and that "most" people think that's OK?

We all lose when these immigrants are deported, and every mass deportation means simultaneously a mass deprivation of rights and a mess of big mistakes that ruin people's families and lives.

What can I say, I contain multitudes.

I think that yes, they should be deported. This is not a punishment.

If your solution is that they should not be deported, but employers should be prosecuted, then you're saying that you want the immigrants to starve.

If your solution is that they should not be deported, but we should extend labor protections to them and force employers to hire them legally, then I think there is some merit to this. This is closer to the libertarian open borders argument, and I once found it very appealing. Entitlement abuse is the main argument against here in my mind.

> extend labor protections

This would also solve the "competition" problem, because it would tend to equalize wages.

My thoughts on this have always been a blend of your two 'they should not be deported' scenarios, with a slow, measured rollout.

Sudden changes cause too much chaos, and you don't always know what works until you try it. Avoiding entitlement abuse is always going to be part of the conversation, and it seems to me the fix for this (and nearly any other issue) needs to be approached carefully from both the supply and demand sides until what's effective is more clear.

I guess where we differ is that I believe that we've tried the other side and found it wanting. You can say that the Biden asylum catch-and-release policies did not include entitlement reform or worker protections so they don't count, but what it shows me is that too many moving parts mean that only the worst aspects of the worst solution are what get implemented. The simplest solution is securing the border and deporting illegal immigrants.

>I think he unfairly places the blame on the immigrants themselves, when the true culprits are the employers and system of black market employment.

The same thought formed in my head listening to that the other day. He even talked about how, as an independent contractor with his own business, he couldn't hire help. He refuses to pay undocumented immigrants under the table (kudos to him), and recognizes that hiring people legitimately would raise his costs too high above the competition. But then he latches onto the idea of deporting the immigrants instead of punishing businesses violating labor laws.

It's not that he apologized for the shady business owners. He didn't seem to ever consider it an option.

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