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[–] carlinco 1 point -1 points 0 points (+0|-1) ago (edited ago)
I'd rather have more liberty than more safety. Though ideal is both.
To me, the best would be if visas were extremely easy to get, so even a poor person can afford them.
Violent criminals, hate preachers and the likes will be the ones not being able to get them, and would be obliged to stay home. That would be a very small part of the population, so no need to build giant walls for them.
Ideally, countries would all be obliged to keep their criminals and fire brands under watch, and inform the affected countries whenever one of them tries to cross the border. But with modern face recognition, options to track misuse of ID's and social security numbers, mobile phones and so on, it's actually quite easy to locate anyone who tries to evade this, to get the pictures to local police, and to apprehend them safely.
I agree with some here that measure need to be taken to make it less lucrative to hire illegals - mandatory minimum social security and punishments for all employers not providing it, should be enough for that. While businesses, street vendors and so on need licenses which they can only get in town halls, where it should be easy to apprehend any illegals.
Leaves people who deal covertly. Simple cell phone tracking, especially where the dealing is illegal (known drug addicts and such) should be enough to find such activity. All that's needed is sufficient measures to give up such trade and enough legal options to make money for the legal residents and export of illegals with according measures, ideally in their home lands. Here, the problem is widespread popularity of drugs like weed, and even some harder drugs, like cocaine. Not to mention that quite a few cynical politicians and security people support those, for cynical reasons like keeping people calm, having dirt on them when needed, and so on.
One can see that a wall will not be able to fix this - it's just an illusion to gain popularity. What's needed is legalisation of anything that's harmless to decrease the size of the underground economy, addressing the reasons why so many people take drugs and doing something about it, like more worthwhile activities, and tough measures, especially against illegal drug dealers and any of their enablers.
As to economic effects of legal migration if kept on high levels: It would allow the US to compete with the likes of China. It would even out wages all over the world and thus reduce extreme poverty (at the cost of the people benefitting from high wages for low-value work in some countries), until a point is reached where a global labor market leads to higher wages for all. And so on.
There are a few long term issues, like a possible race to the bottom when countries with an abundance of cheap labor don't keep their reproduction as low as countries with a high demand for labor. This is something to be dealt with. However, a fortress mentality just means turning a blind eye to the issues, and any fortress will eventually fall. The measures will have to be a little more intelligent than that.
I'd favor capitalist ways out - like better training, but also things like making it easier for rich people to pay for surrogacy mothers among the poor. This would make sure we get more people who are likely to increase wage levels.