[halfmatthalfcat]

The US cannot afford, demographically, to curtail immigration, illegal or otherwise. Simple fact is the US needs more people because we’re under the replacement rate.

[rngfnby]

But why are we under the replacement rate? Seems relevant

[acdha]

It all comes back to women being treated as full people. Having a child is dangerous, expensive, and a major time commitment which mean that women who have other options are going to have fewer children later in life when they have the resources to support them. We also have much less demand for unskilled workers so even women who really want children are getting educated and establishing careers first rather than getting married at 18.

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2026/is-the-us-birth-rate-decli...

That leaves really only two choices: pull a Ceaușescu and try to remove the choice, or improve all of the things which make people feel now is not the right time to have kids. Since the former choice is both immoral and self-defeating, that really flips the discussion to why the people who claim to want more children oppose universal healthcare, childcare, making housing more affordable, banning negative career impacts for mothers, addressing climate change, etc. There are many things which factor into an expensive multi-decade bet and you have to improve all of them to substantially shift the outcome.

[cogman10]

Because of eroding worker rights and raise cost of living.

You need free time for kids and if the salaries are too low for a single income household a lot of people will end up opting out of having kids.

This isn't unique the the US. Basically every country with a whack work life balance is looking at population replacement problems.

[AngryData]

That's what happens when you make your population poor by outsourcing large chunks of your economic base and stomping on worker rights.

[LightBug1]

Considering at least a third of potential replacement partners are Trump voters, can you imagine women feeling sexy about them? LOL

[hackable_sand]

Cat-brained response

[bigyabai]

If you have any better sources of minimum wage labor, now's your chance to say it.

[ralph84]

For the line must always go up crowd, they feel a need. Not everyone is in the line must always go up crowd.

[halfmatthalfcat]

The line is always going to be going up somewhere. I’d rather it be where I live than not.

[refurb]

That logic doesn't hold up.

Legal immigration - as is today - is about 1% of the US population. That's pretty standard, and would result in an slowly increasing population.

But regardless, saying "we need immigrants" then jumping to "illegal or not" is not a logical argument. We absolutely can have a system that prevent illegal immigration, while carefully screening legal immigrants. Heck, every country in the world does this except the US.

[halfmatthalfcat]

Can, if we had a functioning Congress that actually passed material laws. We’ve been trying to pass immigration reform for the last couple of decades.

[paulryanrogers]

The US values individual freedom, has porous borders, a diverse population, and a large land mass. Citizens would have to put up with some pretty draconian living conditions to ensure zero illegal migration.

Even Reagan granted mass amnesty in the face of such costs.

We can disagree on where the threshold of unacceptable intrusion into our lives should be. But significant change probably requires replacing the Fourth Amendment. Or--as is happening now--pretending the 4A doesn't exist and hope whoever is in power next won't prosecute them.