Birth Rates and Immigration

[Judas Maccabeus]

They can; they just have to find someone to hire them anyway, or else the appropriate convincing docs for a fake i9 and w4.

Laws are already on the books. They just aren’t enforced. Now send a few business owners to jail, than you will see a change.

Mandate e-verify, mandate reporting anyone that fails.

[ohio jones]

They are putting a lot of pressure on ladies to have more children but it is not working.
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-w ... -xi-2024-1

The Chinese trained an entire generation so well with draconian enforcement of the "one child" policy (which ended less than 10 years ago) that it's not easy to move the pendulum in the other direction.

[ken_sylvania]

In particular, I'm not interested in what anyone thinks of anyone else in this thread, let's focus on the numbers. And let's keep politics out of this thread, .....

Sorry, my friend. You literally hijacked Josh's thread with all kinds of "what people think about other people" and Nazi comparisons. I understand you're not interested in what I think about anyone, but in case you're interested in what I think about this request - I think it's a case of "do as I say, not as I do."

[Neto]

It is all well and good to talk about illegal immigration versus US births. But no one has presented any data whatsoever showing what the numbers of illegal immigrants are in 2023 or any other recent year. Josh certainly hasn't with the graphs above. And no one else has either.

I think I have, with a graph from Pew and an explanation of how they get the numbers. And I am inviting others to do the same. Can we please focus on doing this, and not drown it out with other topics in this thread?

In particular, I'm not interested in what anyone thinks of anyone else in this thread, let's focus on the numbers. And let's keep politics out of this thread, it's about finding accurate numbers so we can compare them to some claims that have been made.

For the love of reading comprehension! I already tried to clarify this. Josh didn't say anything about children born to mothers in the US illegally. I just suggested that it documents the presence of an illegal immigrant in the country - the MOTHER, not the child!

This was not addressed to me, but ...

Let's use American legal definitions. A child born in the United States is a citizen. In the scenario above, the mother is not. If we need new categories like "children born to immigrants in the United States", we can create them.

I wasn't talking about the child, and the term you suggest does not include the necessary distinction for the reference I was actually making. My grandfather was a "child born to immigrants in the United States", but his parents had immigrated legally. As I said, I wasn't talking about the child, just that the registration of the child's birth would reveal that an undocumented person was the mother. That was the possible data source I was referencing. I was not at all questioning the validity of the child's citizenship, nor would I.

Two of our children are "children born to non-immigrants in Brazil". But, their mother & I were there legally. We were not immigrants, either legal or illegal, but legal residents. I actually do not know what status a Brazilian-born child has, if neither of the parents are Brazilian citizens, or there legally (such as over-staying a visa, which is also an illegal status).

And, I should correct my statement above, because our first child was not born to legal residents of Brazil. She was born to holders of legal visas. It was, in fact, on the basis of her birth and resulting citizenship in Brazil that we were able to stay beyond the end of our initial one year visa, and on which we were approved for legal residency - permanent visas. (We first filed for an extension to our initial visa, but that was refused. In the mean time, however, we had completed the application for permanent visas based on what Brazil calls "Reunification of the Family",because if they expelled us, they would also be expelling a Brazilian citizen, our infant daughter.)

A child could also be born in the United States to holders of current visas, and that also would not fit into the category to which I was referring. I don't know if there are American legal definitions for each of these cases. I doubt it. Even the birth requirements for serving as President of the United States are not totally clear. Many would say that it means that you have to have been born in the US to serve as President, but several of the first presidents were NOT born in the US - obviously, because they were born before its existence.

[Ken]

It is all well and good to talk about illegal immigration versus US births. But no one has presented any data whatsoever showing what the numbers of illegal immigrants are in 2023 or any other recent year. Josh certainly hasn't with the graphs above. And no one else has either.

I think I have, with a graph from Pew and an explanation of how they get the numbers. And I am inviting others to do the same. Can we please focus on doing this, and not drown it out with other topics in this thread?

In particular, I'm not interested in what anyone thinks of anyone else in this thread, let's focus on the numbers. And let's keep politics out of this thread, it's about finding accurate numbers so we can compare them to some claims that have been made.

For the love of reading comprehension! I already tried to clarify this. Josh didn't say anything about children born to mothers in the US illegally. I just suggested that it documents the presence of an illegal immigrant in the country - the MOTHER, not the child!

This was not addressed to me, but ...

Let's use American legal definitions. A child born in the United States is a citizen. In the scenario above, the mother is not. If we need new categories like "children born to immigrants in the United States", we can create them.

I wasn't talking about the child, and the term you suggest does not include the necessary distinction for the reference I was actually making. My grandfather was a "child born to immigrants in the United States", but his parents had immigrated legally. As I said, I wasn't talking about the child, just that the registration of the child's birth would reveal that an undocumented person was the mother. That was the possible data source I was referencing. I was not at all questioning the validity of the child's citizenship, nor would I.

Two of our children are "children born to non-immigrants in Brazil". But, their mother & I were there legally. We were not immigrants, either legal or illegal, but legal residents. I actually do not know what status a Brazilian-born child has, if neither of the parents are Brazilian citizens, or there legally (such as over-staying a visa, which is also an illegal status).

And, I should correct my statement above, because our first child was not born to legal residents of Brazil. She was born to holders of legal visas. It was, in fact, on the basis of her birth and resulting citizenship in Brazil that we were able to stay beyond the end of our initial one year visa, and on which we were approved for legal residency - permanent visas. (We first filed for an extension to our initial visa, but that was refused. In the mean time, however, we had completed the application for permanent visas based on what Brazil calls "Reunification of the Family",because if they expelled us, they would also be expelling a Brazilian citizen, our infant daughter.)

A child could also be born in the United States to holders of current visas, and that also would not fit into the category to which I was referring. I don't know if there are American legal definitions for each of these cases. I doubt it. Even the birth requirements for serving as President of the United States are not totally clear. Many would say that it means that you have to have been born in the US to serve as President, but several of the first presidents were NOT born in the US - obviously, because they were born before its existence.

Yes, every country does things differently.

However here in the US, birth data is collected by states in the birth registry system that generates birth certificates. And to my knowledge, no state collects nationality or immigration status information on birth parents. So that information simply does not exist. It has been 17 years since I went through that process personally. But when our youngest daughter was born in Texas a nurse or clerk came through my wife's hospital room with a clipboard and forms, one for the birth certificate and one for social security. Getting the names of the parent and child correctly spelled and entered on the forms is important, but there was no place to enter nationality, race, citizenship or any other such information. They simply didn't collect it.

[ohio jones]

Even the birth requirements for serving as President of the United States are not totally clear. Many would say that it means that you have to have been born in the US to serve as President, but several of the first presidents were NOT born in the US - obviously, because they were born before its existence.

They were born in one of the States, before they became United. Federalism wasn't quite so firmly entrenched at the time the Constitution was written.

[Neto]

....
Yes, every country does things differently.

However here in the US, birth data is collected by states in the birth registry system that generates birth certificates. And to my knowledge, no state collects nationality or immigration status information on birth parents. So that information simply does not exist. It has been 17 years since I went through that process personally. But when our youngest daughter was born in Texas a nurse or clerk came through my wife's hospital room with a clipboard and forms, one for the birth certificate and one for social security. Getting the names of the parent and child correctly spelled and entered on the forms is important, but there was no place to enter nationality, race, citizenship or any other such information. They simply didn't collect it.

I didn't know that. I was guessing that they did, but mainly because we met a Brazilian man & his American wife on one of our return trips to Brazil. He was being deported, and she chose to go with him. He had entered illegally (at the Mexico border), and was discovered only when he went to the court house to file for a marriage license. (This was around 10 years after he had entered the US. I remember that because he told us that it had taken him 10 years to pay off the 'coyotes' who had brought him into the country. He was basically working as a "slave" during that time.)

[Josh]

This thread is about one very simple question: how many immigrants are actually coming into the country, and how does that compare to the number of births. It started with a Twitter graph that was claiming we have more illegal immigrants than births in the United States. As far as I can tell, this claim is simply false. The graph is also labeled with "Biden" and "Trump", which makes me think it may be politically motivated. Sometimes, political factions do lie to us.

Incorrect. The graph had listed "Births" and "Encounters" as labels underneath "American Births" and "Illegal Aliens". The chart has accurate data for American births (defined as any birth happening in America), and illegal alien encounters (defined using the government's criteria).

The Biden and Trump marks are simply to show when relevant government policy may have changed.

People who do not enter the country or are not allowed to stay are not illegal immigrants. Therefore, the graph you found on Twitter is lying to us about the actual numbers. Border Patrol encounters do not tell us how many illegal immigrants made it into the country. They do not claim to. That's not what the number is for. So I think the Twitter graph is a blatant political lie. The label says it's about the number of immigrants in this country, but that's not the number they used to make the graph. Let's look for accurate numbers instead.

No, the chart isn't lying. It clearly states "encounters".

I would prefer sources that tell you what they are doing with the numbers and why. Do you have others we should look at? I have more I can share, I currently think the Pew statistics are accurate, they are similar to other numbers I can find.

Boot, I think you are simply saying you would prefer sources that have numbers that seem less alarming so that the numbers can be used to justify being less concerned about the topic in question. I don't think we should "forum shop" for data that fits our pre-conceived political ideology.

The number of encounters is a good proxy for how many future illegal aliens will end up permanently residing here. Is that controversial?

[Josh]

Yes, every country does things differently.

However here in the US, birth data is collected by states in the birth registry system that generates birth certificates. And to my knowledge, no state collects nationality or immigration status information on birth parents. So that information simply does not exist. It has been 17 years since I went through that process personally. But when our youngest daughter was born in Texas a nurse or clerk came through my wife's hospital room with a clipboard and forms, one for the birth certificate and one for social security. Getting the names of the parent and child correctly spelled and entered on the forms is important, but there was no place to enter nationality, race, citizenship or any other such information. They simply didn't collect it.

That's not how it's done in my state, at least - hospitals report birth data to some agency that collects the data and eventually sends it to the CDC. Actual birth certificates are a separate process. (In theory, midwives are supposed to report the same thing, which is a separate report from what goes to the local county that results in a birth record filed on the local county records.)

The forms in Ohio have a place to apply for an SSN, although it isn't required, because there is no legal or state requirement to apply for an SSN at all.

The Ohio forms certainly did have spaces for nationality, race, ethnicity, and citizenship, and had quite detailed boxes to check for each. I objected to filling this out, and my local county complained, and told me to complain to Columbus. (I think we are all one race, the human race, and all one big family. So I refused to tick any of the boxes.) The person in Columbus told me by law they have to gather the information and that it is simply used to help identify health problems, health risks, and so on that might go with a particular ethnic group. So on the second attempt, I simply checked every single box, because at some level, all of us are cousins and aunts and uncles to each other. I never heard anything further.

[Josh]

They can; they just have to find someone to hire them anyway, or else the appropriate convincing docs for a fake i9 and w4.

Laws are already on the books. They just aren’t enforced. Now send a few business owners to jail, than you will see a change.

Mandate e-verify, mandate reporting anyone that fails.

E-verify doesn't necessarily tell you a hard pass or fail, but it DOES tell the federal government everyone who is working at a particular job site. I'm not sure that's a good thing to have that much central collection of data.

The federal government does eventually find out when payroll taxes are filed, but that could take as long as a quarter, and some tiny employers don't have to file until an annual report is due.

I don't think it's good to have a giant underclass of people who can't work - or realistically, can only work under-the-table. That's why I have focused my conversation on instead dealing with the problem of more floods of people coming in, so that we can have breathing space to deal with the millions and millions who are already here with illegal status.