Why is it such a difficult concept to understand that Americans want immigrants to come here.... LEGALLY!!! Just a little vetting to ensure that the people coming are like-minded, will fit in well with American values, are willing to pledge allegiance and integrate to American society. IMO Latino's are well suited to join us. They generally have moral values similar to ours and a good work ethic. But they should be vetted, and we should issue work visa's based on the number of workers we need, and grant citizenship after maybe 5 years of residency and no offenses.
Erik -- It's not the immigrants' fault our borders are so porous.
Or for taking to heart the declaration etched on the Stature of Liberty ("... “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...")
Most have become productive, taxpaying citizens. There is no reason to expel them.
If we can put a man on the moon, then we can find a sensible way for the undocumented immigrants to become documented.
Chambers of Commerce, churches and/or clubs (Rotary, Kiwanis, etc) could be sites where they could register; provide copies of tax returns, letters of commendation from their employers, priests and pastors.
Trump has already prevented ICE from raiding factories and farms.
He should also stop all further raids for a specified period of time to allow the undocumented immigrants to prove they are ideal "keepers."
After all, they are no different than many of our forebears who arrived before immigration policies existed
What about the basic fairness of coming in legally versus jumping the line and taking a spot that someone who follows the rules could have had? You might be upset if I cut in line ahead of you at the theater and it then sells out just before you can get a ticket.
Erik -- No one "in line" was bumped out of it by someone who crossed the border illegally.
Those in line stay in line, often for years
Even those who know about how to apply to immigrate have to wait years before their application is approved to get in line.
It's even a torturous wait for people with sought after technical skills
Our immigration system is a mess.
And has been for centuries, primarily for religion and ethnic reasons (e. g. keeping Irish from immigrating because they were Catholic; Chinese because of their ethnicity; Mexicans because they are brown and dirty, etc)
I do not accept that a broken system is a valid excuse to violate the law.
My hope (admittedly perhaps naive) is that once the border is sealed and the criminal illegals removed that the system can be reformed to dramatically increase the number of legal immigrants that meet the criteria I mentioned above. And yes, I am OK with discriminatory policies that prefer certain groups over others, but consider individuals individually at the final gate. As the country was founded by protestants fleeing state religion, it was only natural they wanted to keep catholics out. Much has changed on that front. I would now argue that Catholic (latino's) are preferred, whereas I remain to be convinced that muslims in general are compatible with our system of government.
Bill forgot to mention abortion as a leading cause for lack of reproductivity. Talk about ghosts! Sixty three million since Rowe vs Wade. In 2023 over One million thirty seven thousand. I knew high. The graph is trending higher.. How many offspring would those 63 million people have produced? Perhaps they should add that number to the doom index. The price of mcdonald's hamburger price of corrugated..... number of abortions. I don't know the number but what was the actual cost of all those abortions?
All that said, legal immigration is awesome.We need to make it easier for those well qualified Who are likely to contribute to the GDP not draw from it like those in the above thesis.
You’re right to want the U.S. immigration system to be functional and fair. But the idea that the U.S. should first seal the border and remove “criminal illegals” before reforming anything has been the promise for decades—and it never plays out that way. What usually happens is the border gets more militarized, the political rhetoric gets louder, and real reform gets pushed even further out of reach. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy continues to rely on the very people being targeted—often in agriculture, construction, hospitality, and elder care—without offering them a legal way to stay or contribute fully.
As for being “okay with discriminatory policies,” that’s a dangerous path the U.S. has gone down before. The Chinese Exclusion Act, national origin quotas, and religious profiling didn’t make the country stronger—they just reflected old fears and assumptions that didn’t age well. And over time, many of the groups once seen as incompatible—Irish Catholics, Italian immigrants, Eastern European Jews—proved to be exactly the kind of contributors the country needed.
Saying today’s Muslim immigrants don’t align with U.S. values is repeating that same error, just with a different label. The real question isn’t what religion someone belongs to—it’s whether they respect the law, contribute to their community, and want to build a future. If they do, the smart move isn’t to keep them out—it’s to bring them in legally, let them pay taxes, earn their status, and help solve the very labor and demographic shortages the U.S. is now facing.
That’s not idealism. That’s long-term stability. And it's a policy shift the U.S. could benefit from—if politics didn’t keep getting in the way.
You make good points. I believe that after some period of the border being totally locked down as it is now and enough of the criminal element removed and deported, Americans will regain an appetite for immigrant labor. I think this might actually be an opening for democrats if they are able to admit they screwed the pooch under Biden, and say "OK, we do need secure borders AND a much better immigration system that allows a lot more people in but vets them and matches numbers with employment needs." However, you never just want to throw the doors open to anyone that wants to come work here as that will drive down labor pay. I personally would also like to see it tied to workfare reform. There is no point in bringing in immigrant labor when the labor force participation rate is at record lows. Able-bodied people should not be incented not to work. So, Americans of working age who can work should work. Any labor gaps are filled with *vetted* immigrants, and the border stays secure so that we control and know who we are allowing into the country. And as mentioned before, 5 years of good work record and no criminal record and you are eligible for citizenship.
Tell you what, that illegal immigration is a net loser for American taxpayers? These poor downtrodden souls that just want a better life don't pay nearly as much in taxes than they take from the state, county and municipal governments in terms of education, healthcare, the justice system, and under Biden they even received food and shelter. They don't come legally in many cases because they don't really want to work. Why buy the cow if the milk is free?
That’s a common claim — that undocumented immigrants take more than they give — but when you look at the actual numbers, it gets a lot more complicated. Multiple independent studies, including from the Cato Institute and the National Academy of Sciences, have shown that immigrants (even undocumented ones) contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, especially at the local level. They pay billions in taxes — sales tax, property tax (even if they rent), and billions more through payroll taxes using fake or borrowed Social Security numbers. They fund benefits they’ll never be eligible to collect.
As for “free food and shelter,” yes — in some cases, emergency aid has been provided, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to subsidies for other sectors. Try comparing that to corporate tax breaks or farm subsidies and see where the real money goes. And the idea that people cross deserts, risk arrest, and live in the shadows of a foreign country just to get free food stamps? That’s not laziness — that’s desperation. Most of them are working — in kitchens, fields, warehouses, nursing homes — jobs that are hard, underpaid, and often avoided by Americans altogether.
Now, if the U.S. doesn’t want to be in this situation forever, the solution isn’t punishment. It’s a functioning immigration system that matches reality — one that gives people a legal way to work, contribute, and yes, pay taxes. Otherwise, you're stuck with a black market labor force and all the costs that come with trying to pretend they’re not there.
Mr. Kandia, So you want mass amnesty for the third-world poor? Did you know that two-thirds of legal aliens from third-world countries vote Democrat? Do you think the third-world poor are going to vote for anyone except those who offer them endless amounts of free stuff that their third-world hell holes can't offer them? Over 95% percent of them will immediately vote Democrat upon becoming voters, and the debt will rise to unsustainable levels very quickly when the Democrats take over. Why do you think the Democrats opened the borders for four years, and now want mass amnesty so badly? Once the Dems get back in, they will reopen the borders, promising even more mass amnesty. This will cause another flood of third-world peasants to pour into the U.S. And as the Roman Empire discovered, moving from artisans to slave (cheap) labor was a very bad idea. When a country has lots of cheap labor, it rarely innovates and improves. And if cheap labor is go great, then why are third-world countries, which have tons of it, such hell holes? You would think all that cheap labor, and a strong belief in big govt., would make them super-rich.
And why isn't Japan, which has the toughest border and immigration policies in the world, as well as having a population that skews older and is extremely homogeneous, not facing starvation? Well, their policies and birth rates have forced them to mechanize and innovate a great deal. And leftists love Communist China, so why aren't they blasting their friends for having such tough immigration policies? Why aren't they demanding that Communist China take in tens of millions of third-world peasants?
As former Trump senior advisor Julia Hahn pointed out some years ago, the third-world culture is not conducive to first-world values because that culture believes government can do no harm. And ironically it's their belief in big, benevolent government that has caused their countries to be third-world hell holes.
Dave J -- The vast majority of those who immigrate to America did so to have a better life; not for welfare.
And of this vast majority (Russian Jews, Chinese laborers, Hispanics galore, Haitians, Vietnamese, Afghans, etc), most have prospered; some significantly
Many of the more recent are helped not by welfare but by churches, synagogues, communities and clubs (Rotarians, etc.).
And savor this: those that do receive welfare and abuse it are deported.
You seldom read about these deportations because few abuse the welfare they receive
What you said here has a smattering of truth, until four years ago. Biden and his merry band of drunken Marxists removed the work incentive and replaced it with a lot of free stuff. Did you not read what was happening in NYC, Chicago, Boston and many other large, Democrat run sh!tholes? They were throwing away the free food because it didn't satisfy their pallets!
It's as I said previously, the Dems strongly believe they will have permanent majorities if they can just import enough new voters. The financial data is clear, the American taxpayer loses bigly on the average illegal alien. That's after they factor in taxes (not a lot of tax gets paid when people work under the table BTW). I come from a border state with the most illegal aliens in the nation. I know of what I speak because I saw it first hand. (Not to mention being a landscaping contractor.) If you haven't lived it up close and personal, you just don't know.
The entire point of this nonsense is that in order to be a nation of law, and succeed, its citizens need to follow those laws. When you have arguably half the nation that breaks those laws, and promotes lawlessness, you have these Un-United States of America. President Trump did exactly what he was hired to do. Uphold the law, close the borders, and protect our citizens. The only correct way forward, is prosecuting those criminals responsible for allowing 20 million ILLEGALS freely into our country. To those demented people who don’t understand this, and continue to break the laws, maybe you should consider finding another country more sympathetic to your mental illness, before you too end up in Alligator Alcatraz🤔 😊
Right, they all did come for a better life. Some came work hard. Some to get free stuff by Leader legal means or otherwise. Criminal too came for a better life. The gangs came to f*** Americans and screw up their country just like they did their own. Better pickings here.
Totally fair to want a legal immigration process. Most people do. But here’s the thing—the U.S. system doesn’t work. It’s like telling someone to follow the rules of a board game, but half the rules are missing, the other half contradict each other, and there’s no way to win. For millions of low-skilled workers, there simply isn’t a legal path to apply. “Just come legally” sounds reasonable until you realize there is no line to get into. And asylum seekers? They’re in a different category altogether and already face heavy screening. Meanwhile, under Trump, ICE has bounced back and forth on whether to raid farms and factories. At one point they paused, likely because the industries that rely on immigrant labor pushed back—these are the people picking food, packing meat, cleaning hotels. Then they quietly resumed the raids. So the U.S. economy is depending on these workers while also threatening to deport them—and offering no realistic legal alternative. That’s not law and order. That’s dysfunction. If Americans actually want a fix, how about this: instead of chasing down the people who are already there, working, and contributing, give them a way to stay—legally. Let them pay taxes, earn status, and become citizens over time. That’s not open borders. That’s practical. Otherwise, it’s just blaming people for walking through the only open door while refusing to build one that works.
Bill is definitely tripping out over Trump & the right side policies. Have you ever seen him reference five (5) left leaning articles vs one (1) right leaning article? As BPR says "math doesn't lie", so that is 16.66% of right leaning information and 83.44% left leaning information. Al Jazeera? Seriously? Maybe Bill is another old guy who is pissed that someone like DJT is directing American traffic: John McCain, Mitt Romney, & Jerome Powell come to mind. Oh the end of non-partisan journalism, it is truly dead. RIP BPR
Immigrants are those who travel to the US legally and are grateful for the opportunities only available in the US. The remainder are illegal aliens who have thwarted the process by breaking into the US and besmudged immigrants who enter legally. There is a way to increase legal immigration; however, it is not possible right now given the sizeable quantity of illegal aliens.
Wanting people to work and produce and add to the domestic product is "left leaning"? Were your kids refused the opportunity to pick strawberries in hundred degree heat? When Trump succeeds in "Making the Rest of the World Great" and pushing our country into a 1930's depression (you probably know nothing about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff disaster), you'll be singing a different song. In the meantime, at least, we'll at least have the greatest military in the world, one that will be able to scare everyone to death, like that beautiful parade it staged to worship "Der Fuhrer" on his very sacred birthday. Or maybe, your soldier kids can find some poor defenseless country/city to drop bombs on--like Yemen, Iran (1952 and last month), Gaza, Iraq, Guatemala (1953), Argentina (1960's), Vietnam (1954-1973), Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Angola, Philippines (1899 and 1945), Hiroshima, Serbia (to name a few actual examples). The one good product of Trump's right-wing assaults and torture chambers is that he's making people all over the world think twice about what they can do to improve their own and their countries' economies.
I have a platform to follow that best represents a path forward for a broke-ass country. What are your solutions? BPR speaks endlessly about deep state and the bankruptcy of the USA. What was USAID? A complete and utter deep state slush fund that betrayed the taxpayer; that was nothing new, but it's done now. Is BPR touting these changes/savings?
Illegal aliens were not part of the federal government being the number one new hires in the employment field, that was the political machine bankrupting the USA. Look at everything that's happening, government is changing because it was broken and literally broke. For all who worry for the rest of the world while things get straightened out here, send all your extra money abroad. Maybe those that believe the world deserves Americans' money will give their own instead of asking everyone to pay for policies that don't reflect the electorate desires.
It’s not foreigners who bankrupted (you’re probably right that it already happened) America, but the hopelessly corrupt MIC that Eisenhower drew attention to.
It’s fair to say the U.S. government has wasted money and let a lot of things slide for a long time. No argument there. But blaming it all on foreign aid or “illegals” misses the scale of the problem. USAID is a drop in the bucket compared to what gets spent on defense, Medicare, Social Security, interest on debt, and domestic bureaucracy. Cutting it might make a good headline, but it won’t fix a $36 trillion debt.
And about federal hiring - undocumented immigrants aren’t getting those jobs. They can’t. The people being hired into government positions are U.S. citizens. If the issue is bloat, that’s an internal one. Blaming migrants who are working under the table or picking produce for minimum wage doesn’t match reality. They’re not bankrupting anything. They're part of the economy that already exists.
If the system was broken, fine. Fix it. But let’s not pretend the solution is to wall everything off and send everyone home. If you're talking about real reform, it has to include updating immigration laws, adjusting spending priorities, and making government work for people again. Everything else is noise.
Jeez. I picked strawberries all through middle school in high school. I also detassled corn. The kids in my neighborhood now are denied the opportunity for those jobs because they ship wonders in to do it. That's how I paid my college that and a grocery store job.
Strawberry picking and detasseling corn are tough jobs. Props to you for doing them. But let’s be honest, that was a different time. Those jobs didn’t disappear because immigrants took them. They disappeared because most kids today are not lining up to do hard manual labor in the heat for low pay. Employers bring in migrant workers because no one else is showing up.
If the kids in your neighborhood really want those jobs, they still exist. But if no one applies, the work does not stop. Someone else fills the gap. That is not sabotage. That is supply and demand.
Some of what you say is true but several of the "poor defenseless countries" you cite bombed the hell out of their own citizens, their neighbors, or us before we got involved. I fully agree that some of Trump's methods of dealing with the immigration problem are wrongheaded but without an organized system of dealing with immigration, you don't have a country, you have a diverse mob.
True, but usually at different times and with different governments. Eg, In Iran we overthrew the first democratically elected government in the entire Middle East on behalf of our oil companies and imposed a ruthless dictatorship, the Shah. We overthrew the second elected government of Guatemala in 1953 on behalf of United Fruit (Chiquita today) and subsequent governments have slaughtered more than 500,000 indigenous Guatemalans since then. Too frequently, the US war machine (which, at 22 million killed, is approaching Nazi Germany’s world history record of killed) has acted on behalf of the local murderous governments, not the democratically elected ones. Chiquita, by the way, was recently convicted in US courts of hiring thugs to kill activists and farm workers in Colombia. And that’s the tip of the tip of the iceberg that human beings in other countries have been and are being subjected to.
You're right that some countries have ugly histories. No one’s denying that. But the idea that every person fleeing those places is somehow responsible for the actions of their government doesn't hold water. People don’t choose where they’re born. They escape because they’re trying to survive what their governments or militias did to them, not because they were part of it.
And yes, immigration needs order. No country can function without it. But describing it as a “diverse mob” says more about fear than about policy. What’s missing isn't toughness. It’s structure. The system has been broken for decades. Trump didn’t cause it, and Biden hasn’t fixed it. So the real question isn’t whether a border should exist. Of course it should. The question is whether the system behind it actually makes sense. Right now, it doesn’t. And the people taking the heat for that are the ones doing the jobs no one else wants, while Washington keeps kicking the can.
You’re right that journalism today can feel all over the map. But balance doesn’t mean forcing a 50-50 split between left and right sources just for show. If five outlets, whether left-leaning, international, or independent, are all reporting similar facts, maybe it’s not bias. Maybe it’s just reality. Dismissing a headline because it comes from Al Jazeera isn’t critical thinking. It’s filtering out anything that challenges the preferred narrative.
As for the immigrant versus "illegal alien" framing, I get the instinct to make a clean distinction. But that assumes people have an open and accessible legal path to follow, and in many cases, they don’t. For the majority of people trying to enter the U.S. from poorer or unstable countries, there’s no line to stand in. No process that actually works. So while it's easy to say, “they should have done it legally,” that’s a bit like telling someone to swim across a river when there’s no bridge and then blaming them for getting wet.
If there's a real desire to increase legal immigration, then great — the U.S. should do exactly that. But saying it’s not possible "right now" because there are too many undocumented people already there just keeps kicking the problem down the road. The reason there are so many in the first place is because the legal system hasn't kept up with demand for decades.
If the U.S. wants less illegal immigration, it needs a system that actually works. Otherwise it's just frustration and blame with no exit plan.
I don't think all those "immigrants" Bill gushes over that are sucking off the state, county and municipal government tits in large cities throughout the country are the answer. In fact, and you can look it up, the average illegal alien costs the American taxpayer about $9,500.00 a year net. Which means after they factor in the income and sales taxes the ones that work pay . . . we lose. Bill has a "selective news" fetish.
We need people to pick our lettuce don't you know? The problem with that whole ruse is that temporary employees that serve the agricultural sector come in on temporary Visas because that industry has learned how to do things the right way.
The people that came in during Biden's walk-in-a-polooza weren't coming to work, they were coming for the free stuff the Democrats were dangling because the Democrats see them as their ticket to perpetual power via the ballot box.
“The people that came in during Biden's walk-in-a-polooza weren't coming to work, they were coming for the free stuff the Democrats were dangling because the Democrats see them as their ticket to perpetual power via the ballot box.”….A-f*cking-MEN!!!
Thing is, when left to his own thoughts in a quiet moment, Mr. Bonner damn well knows that. But his left-leaning (likely Obiden voting) politics, coupled with absolute dislike of everything Trump, has rendered him unable to say it.
I don’t know Sluggo, I’m starting to think he really does believe his own BS. Think about it, he spews the EXACT same nonsense as the lunatic fringe in Congress! It’s really amazing.
Sadly, you’re likely spot-on. I was just unrealistically hoping he had some shred of intellectual clarity and honesty remaining…if nothing else, at least with himself.
The theory sounds airtight until you actually look at how any of it works.
Undocumented immigrants can’t vote. Not now, not next election, not anytime soon. The idea that Democrats are handing out citizenship like coupons to win elections ignores the years-long process it takes just to get a green card, let alone a ballot. If that’s their master plan, it’s a terrible one.
As for the “free stuff” idea, sure, there’s been emergency housing and basic aid in some cities. But most of these people aren’t getting welfare checks and benefit packages. They’re picking produce, cleaning hotels, working kitchens, and taking jobs most Americans haven’t wanted in years. That’s not entitlement. That’s labor.
And let’s be real. If Bonner was truly a diehard progressive, he wouldn’t spend so much time bashing debt spending, fiat money, and government overreach. He takes shots at everyone. You can disagree with his tone or his takes, but pretending he’s towing the Democrat line just because he doesn’t praise Trump is lazy thinking.
If the border matters—and it does—then focus on fixing the system. Yelling about “Obiden” and imaginary armies of voter-farmers doesn’t solve a thing. It just keeps the noise going.
Yes we are. I don't want to say too much on a public forum like this, but in the Los Angeles area there are countless illegals that "double dip". The men work for cash money (the green stuff denominated in 10's, 20's and 100's) and then the women apply for and receive public benefits ("for the children" as ping pong eyes Pelosi is wont to tell us). This is how they are able to send so much money "back home".
I know of cases where the women attempt to stop their welfare benefits and the government case workers talk them out of it because the more people taking those benefits the more job security there is for the case workers. All paid for by American taxpayers. It's disgusting.
It’s easy to take a bike ride through a rough neighborhood and assume it’s all the result of illegal immigration. But poverty, overcrowding, and poor urban planning existed long before this wave of migration. Graffiti, double parking, and broken infrastructure aren’t exclusive to any one group. They're symptoms of a city that's grown faster than it was managed. You could find the same issues in parts of Detroit, Philly, or rural towns where immigration isn’t even on the radar.
As for emergency reserves and aid, yes, some California cities are using temporary funds to handle the strain. But let’s be clear — this didn’t start with immigrants. It started with a housing market warped by decades of restrictive zoning, investor buying, and endless population growth. The system was already cracked. Migration just pushed the pressure higher.
And on the line about “immigrants built this country,” it’s not meant to ignore the word “illegal.” It’s meant to remind people that nearly every wave of immigrants was treated like this at some point. Irish, Italians, Chinese, Mexicans — all accused of lowering standards, swamping neighborhoods, and ruining the country. And yet, they stayed, worked, paid taxes, raised families, and became part of the story. It’s not clean or simple, but it’s the pattern.
If California’s policies are broken, fine. Call them out. Push for smarter zoning, better transit, and more housing options. But blaming all of it on the people at the bottom of the pile won’t fix any of it. It just gives the people at the top a free pass to keep building a system that doesn’t work for anyone.
If people are working for cash under the table, that’s not ideal. But that isn’t a loophole created by immigrants. It’s one that’s been built and maintained by employers, landlords, and entire industries that benefit from cheap, quiet labor. It’s not like ICE is blind to the lawn crews and kitchen staffs across major cities. It’s just easier to look the other way when the economy runs on it.
As for public benefits, undocumented immigrants don’t qualify for most federal aid. They can’t get food stamps, Medicaid, or welfare. The one exception is for U.S.-born children, who are citizens and therefore eligible. Whether you agree with that or not, that’s the law as written.
The story about case workers refusing to cancel benefits sounds like one of those tales that’s been passed around so many times it starts to feel true. Maybe it happened once. But it’s not policy, and it’s not how state programs are designed to function. Most social workers are underpaid and overworked. They’re not padding their job security by begging people to stay on welfare.
If the system needs reform, fine. Reform it. But pinning the blame entirely on immigrants while ignoring the economic structures that make all of this possible just keeps the outrage flowing while the status quo stays right where it is.
Yes, Americans used to do all that work. So did recent immigrants. The difference isn’t that the work changed. The economy did.
A hundred years ago, a guy could support a family by cleaning floors or working a factory line. Now, most of those jobs don’t even pay enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment. It’s not that Americans are too proud to work. It’s that they can do the math. When a fast food job pays less than the gas it takes to get there, they walk away. When picking produce in 40-degree heat for 12 hours a day barely covers groceries, they look for something else.
So yes, things are different now. Not because there’s a ruling class handing out mop buckets to the rest, but because the cost of living exploded while wages at the bottom stayed frozen. Immigrants—especially undocumented ones—fill those roles because they have fewer options and more pressure to take what they can get. That’s not a conspiracy. That’s market pressure.
If wages were fair and housing wasn't a joke, more Americans would probably do that work again. Until then, the system keeps depending on the people it refuses to acknowledge.
...my original lament referred to 100 years ago, not the last decade... and your pointlessness furthers as it does not outline the conditions in which Anthony advertised employment or the cultural environment where he employs.
Yes, there are legal temporary visas for agricultural work. That’s true. But they don’t come close to covering the labor that’s needed, and the process is slow, limited, and buried in red tape. Plenty of growers still rely on undocumented labor because the legal channels are too narrow or too expensive. That’s not a ruse. That’s a broken system that nobody’s fixed.
The idea that people showed up under Biden just to grab free stuff makes for a good soundbite, but it falls apart when you look at what life is actually like without legal status. Most of those people can’t get federal benefits. They work under the table, they pay into programs they can’t access, and they live with the constant risk of being detained or deported. That isn’t freeloading. That’s surviving.
And no, they’re not voting. They can’t. The path from undocumented to citizen takes years, if it happens at all. The “importing voters” theory sounds clever, but it ignores the basic facts of how naturalization and voting rights work.
If you want to know why this keeps going in circles, here it is. Congress hasn’t fixed the system because neither party actually wants it fixed. Both sides use immigration as a political prop. One side talks about lawlessness and invasion, the other about compassion and inclusion. Real reform would mean compromise. It would mean admitting hard truths. That this labor is needed. That some people will need a path to stay. That enforcement still matters. And that yelling about it for another twenty years won't change anything.
But compromise doesn’t get anyone elected. Outrage does. That’s why nothing changes.
No one is saying breaking the law is ideal. The issue is that the law, as it stands, does not match how the economy actually works. It is illegal to hire undocumented workers, yes. But it still happens every day because there is demand for labor and no realistic legal path to meet that demand.
Businesses are not hiring undocumented workers out of kindness. They hire them because the work needs to get done and few others are willing to do it. Agriculture, construction, food service, and elder care all depend heavily on immigrant labor, whether those workers have papers or not. If you removed every undocumented worker overnight, a lot of industries would collapse, and prices would rise across the board.
It may not make clean legal sense. But relying on enforcement alone, without fixing the system behind it, just keeps the situation broken. When laws ignore economic reality, people find ways around them. That is not support for breaking the rules. That is how pressure builds when a system refuses to evolve. If you want less illegal hiring, make legal hiring possible. Everything else is just noise.
I’ve looked it up. The $9,500 number gets tossed around a lot, but it's from think tanks with an axe to grind. Groups like FAIR push that number by stacking up every possible cost while downplaying or ignoring long-term contributions. It’s like calculating the cost of a student without factoring in what they’ll earn, build, or pay back over a lifetime.
Serious studies, including from the National Academies of Sciences, show a more complicated picture. First-generation immigrants, especially low-income ones, can cost more in the short term, mostly at the state and local level. But their kids contribute more than they consume and often outperform the average American in education and income. That’s how the U.S. economy has worked for generations. High upfront cost, long-term return. That’s not leeching. That’s investment.
And let’s not pretend most undocumented immigrants are lounging on the system. They’re working in agriculture, food prep, construction, and elder care. Many pay taxes through fake Social Security numbers, which means they’re funding programs they can’t collect from. That’s not freeloading. That’s subsidizing.
If someone wants to argue that the system needs reform, I agree. But slapping a dollar figure on every undocumented person without context doesn’t make the argument stronger. It just makes it louder.
Does anyone ask the question - Why is it that the natives don't want to have more children? Perhaps our elites have created an economy that makes having kids an onerous task for the average young couple. Our great leaders have created an economy that requires two incomes to keep afloat. Thus, get up, get the kids ready, drop them off at daycare, go to work, etc. Plus, the housing bubble puts houses out of reach for many.
Couple that with skyrocketing insurance and medical costs and it's alot easier to skip having kids. If I were just getting married and had to join that rat race I definitely wouldn't be eager to have children.
Bill never mentions the fact that over a million are known felons with heinous records. Maybe he wants them next to him but not me. For every mistake an ICE or immigration official makes there are ten thousand correct things they do. I like the odds.
If someone is a violent felon and not supposed to be in the country, then yes, deport them. No one is defending that. But pulling out “over a million known felons” without context is how fear turns into policy paralysis. The majority of undocumented immigrants do not have criminal records beyond immigration violations. That is not an opinion. It is confirmed by multiple government studies, including ICE’s own data.
And if we are going to talk about crime, let’s be clear. Native-born Americans commit it too, and at higher rates. You do not solve anything by acting like crime is something brought in from the outside.
You are right that ICE gets it right a lot of the time. But the stakes are high when they get it wrong. Families are separated. Legal residents are detained. People are deported for low-level offenses. You might like the odds, but if it is your family in the one percent, the math feels different.
The real solution is a system that can tell the difference between actual threats and people trying to build a life. Right now, everything is lumped together. That is why it keeps breaking down.
In our debt-based economy new dollars must be created and ever-expanding, otherwise the system will be seen for what it is and collapse, as all Ponzi does when there is insufficient new input. Contrarily, the real resources on which life is based does have finiteness. The two systems are ultimately incompatible and one must succumb to the victor. One guess as to which one prevails. Maybe a look at a chart of true inflation over a century or so, before fiat would provide a hint.
Thanks, I watched an interview of Lawrence Lepard and Chris Martenson yesterday. Larry has the answer but it likely will not happen anytime soon, if ever: Abolish the Fed and return to honest money. I sincerely doubt that will happen voluntarily (by the “Cahooters”, ie Fed and US gubmint).
I get the appeal of pulling the emergency brake on civilization and saying, “Enough.” It feels wise. Responsible. But here’s the problem: the systems we’ve built—pensions, healthcare, even the basic promise that your lights will turn on—are all wired for growth. Stop feeding them, and they don’t gently wind down. They implode.
No babies? No workers.
No workers? No taxpayers.
No taxpayers? No state.
And no state means good luck funding all the “quality of life” we're supposed to be protecting by stopping growth in the first place.
But here’s where I agree with you: the kind of growth we’ve been chasing is broken. We’ve treated the planet like it’s infinite and the future like it’s guaranteed. That’s not growth—that’s hubris.
So maybe the real task isn’t to kill growth. It’s to redefine it.
Not more junk.
Not more people packed into cities with collapsing infrastructure.
But more capability. More efficiency. More durability. More time.
Less “stuff,” more substance.
It’s not growth or collapse.
It’s smart growth or stupid extinction.
And right now, we’ve been leaning hard into the stupid.
"All the accepted best countries in the world to live" are primarily of the same tribe (heritage) and have the most educated populations.
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Population is not the problem; everyone in the world, ...all 8 billion of us, sitting in our own 10' X 10' room would fit in the state of South Carolina, with room to spare.
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The problem is distribution.
Whether war, political, economic or natural; folks toil, die, fight over distribution of goods and resources.
Problems arise when things are hoarded, withheld, not distributed...
These decisions are heavily influenced within the culture of the people.
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If the distribution problems were resolved, wasteful consumption would be reduced and resources more equally distributed.
The general quality of life would be improved... less wars, less poverty etc...
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Your response is somewhat unrealistic as you eliminate entirely "no taxpayers, no workers... that's simply not the case.
There would still be plenty, in fact likely plenty more for everyone!
Illegal immigration is not the solution. Legal immigration is the solution. Our congress needs to get their act together and pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. It is too difficult to immigrate legally. The procedures are archaic and frustrating to the applicants.
We need legal immigrants. Immigrants that want to contribute to society instead of living off of our largess. Immigrants that embrace the American dream and want to become Americans.
Here we go again, with Mr. Bonner unable to correctly identify the criminal border trespassers. They are NOT “immigrants.”
Further, apparently Mr. Bonner is taking the position that, as long as a criminal border trespasser does not commit a “violent” crime while in the United States illegally, then it is acceptable for a criminal border trespasser to violate U.S. immigration law, and this should be excused and overlooked.
Man. The leftist mind is a tangled, confused, cognitive dissonant place indeed.
Calling every undocumented person a “criminal border trespasser” might feel satisfying, but it is not how the law or the system works. Entering the U.S. without authorization is a civil violation in most cases, not a criminal one. Reentry after deportation can be a felony, yes. But lumping everyone into one big criminal category isn’t accuracy. It’s branding.
No one is saying the law should be ignored. The point is that the law should make sense. Right now, the U.S. has no workable path for the kind of labor it clearly depends on. That is not an excuse. It is a policy failure. People are not coming because they found a legal loophole. They are coming because the demand for their labor is real and the system for managing it is outdated.
If you want fewer people crossing illegally, build a system that lets them apply legally. Until then, calling them names doesn’t change the reality. It just keeps the shouting going while nothing gets fixed.
"Entering the U.S. without authorization is a civil violation in most cases, not a criminal one"
This is bull💩, Lucas. Unlawful entry into the US is a felony. The fact that the offense normally results in civil penalties only doesn't change that. Stop with the lies.
Bill couldn't we replace our population needs through legal immigration? Also Bill, even the least sophisticated of your readers knows enough not the belive everything they read. Yet you find it necessary to reprint and reference left-learning media to support your covert distain for the present administration. What ever happened to your mantra "just connecting the dots". Please connect the dots and do not contribute to the media noise, as I can find that for free elsewhere.
You’re almost there. Yes, the U.S. could absolutely meet its population and labor needs through legal immigration. But here’s the part that gets missed. The legal system does not allow for it. The number of employment-based green cards is capped at levels that no longer reflect reality. There is no clear or workable path for most of the people the economy quietly depends on. So when people say, “Just come legally,” that might sound reasonable, but in many cases there is no line to stand in and no door to knock on. They are not skipping the process. The process is not there.
And if that is the case, what does mass deportation solve? It does not fix the labor shortage. It does not change the laws. It does not magically make citizens appear to pick crops, prepare food, clean buildings, or care for aging parents. It just deepens the chaos. Deport millions of people and all you have done is rip out the foundation without building anything to stand on.
The system is broken. Not just on paper, but in practice. It does not match the demand. It does not process applications efficiently. It has been ignored by both parties for decades. So no, deportation does not fix that. All it does is punish people for stepping into a vacuum that Washington refuses to fill.
As for Bill’s media sources, yes, some of them lean left at times. But that does not mean the facts are wrong. When multiple outlets from different backgrounds report the same trends, that is not a signal to tune out. That is when you start connecting dots.
So yes, hold the media to a higher standard. But do not ignore what is broken just because the source does not match your politics. This is not about defending one party or the other. It is about fixing a system that no one has had the political courage to fix. And until that happens, yelling about the symptoms will not cure the disease.
For the sake of securing their votes, we put our working class on welfare, and then wondered why we had to pay immigrants under the table to get menial tasks done. Then, we found out that these underground workers could do semi-skilled, and even skilled work, but cheaper. Bonus! Good for us! Next thing you know, the country is out of control. This is just what the political class wanted: a perfect storm of chaos with which to fundamentally transform the country and take control via top-down, big-government suffocation. As Liberace would say when flashing his jewelry to the audience: "You like it? You paid for it." Best always. PM
Ha! Thanks Paul, brings back memories of my grandmother. She loved Liberace and attended a few of his shows and owned his records. We used to make a little fun of her over it 😂, to no avail. She thought he had exquisite taste!!! I wish she was still around. I miss her, AND Liberace. He did have a great sense of humor and never missed a chance to not take himself too seriously.
You are not wrong to be cynical. There is truth buried in that frustration. The working class got squeezed, jobs were outsourced or devalued, and the safety net turned into a patch for wage stagnation. That did not happen by accident. It happened because it was easier for politicians and corporations to bring in cheaper labor and cover the gaps with public programs than to deal with the core problem. Wages stopped keeping up with the cost of living, and no one in power wanted to fix it.
Where it starts to go off track is the idea that this was all some grand plan to take control of the country. It was not a master plan. It was drift. No one took responsibility, and both sides learned to benefit from the chaos. Immigrants did not cause that. They showed up to do the work that still needed doing. Blaming them just distracts from the people who had the power to fix things and chose not to.
So yes, Liberace was right about one thing. You did pay for it. But it was not the guy mowing lawns or cleaning buildings who took your money. It was the people who kept telling you the system was fine while making sure it stayed broken.
I did not mean to imply that the victims are at fault. If I did, I did not intend that. You cite drift as opposed to evil intent as the cause. I can cite examples against that (LBJ's play to the black vote, for example), but for the sake of brevity, let's ask, "Who caused that drift?" Who had the power to stop it? Did someone who sacrificed his personal ease and comfort to bring 5 capable, well-taught, fundamentally sound children to adulthood for the good of the country and society, did that individual cause drift or did he fight it? Did he watch his non-participating cohorts pass the plate when it came to them? Whence drift? Best always. PM
That’s exactly the right instinct. Work permits and legal immigration are the answer. The problem is the current system makes them almost impossible for the people who need them most. Caps are outdated. Processing is slow. And there’s no real path for the kind of low-wage, high-demand jobs that keep the economy running.
So yes, take a second look. But not just at the idea—at the actual system that’s supposed to support it. If you want people to follow the rules, the rules have to exist and make sense. Right now, they don’t. That’s why so many people end up in the shadows. Not because they want to cheat the system, but because the system left them out before they even started.
This morning I saw a segment on Fox Business which reported that a well known billionaire and AI expert believes that construction workers will be replaced by robots and AI. If so, we will need less manual labor, not more. Another story from personal experience. When I moved to Oregon in 2009, a certain blueberry field required multiple vans of laborers for the harvest, probably around 40 or 50 people. Before I left in 2017, it was done with less than 5 workers and one amazing machine. The future is less people and more technology. Those asking for more illegal labor to pick crops and do other manual tasks are ignorant or lying politicians, or both.
You’re right that automation is changing a lot, especially in farming and construction. I watched a 3D-printed building go up in Casa Grande a couple of years ago—molded concrete, machine-built, and impressive. But even then, it still needed people. Humans had to set it up, monitor it, and finish everything the machine couldn’t do. Same with harvesters. I’ve seen the machines in action. They can cut labor way down, but they’re not a full replacement. Not yet.
The leap from “machines are improving” to “we don’t need labor anymore” sounds clean on paper, but it doesn’t match what’s happening on the ground. Most automation only works in certain conditions, with certain crops, and it’s expensive. Small and mid-sized farms still rely on human labor because the tech isn’t scalable, affordable, or flexible enough.
So yes, the future might involve fewer workers. But it’s not here yet. And until it is, those jobs still need to be done. Immigration—legal or otherwise—is filling a gap that the current labor market doesn’t want and that machines can’t fully handle. That’s not political spin. That’s the part nobody wants to say out loud while they wait for the robots to catch up.
Mr. Bonner’s dropping these missives like he’s mainlining nitroglycerin in a clown car demolition derby, he ain’t just after the Triple Crown, he’s here to strangle the Four Horsemen with his bare hands and wear their skulls like bowling trophies. Meanwhile, the maggot-infested tombs of Wall Street and DC’s vampire lairs echo with the sterile sobs of men who haven’t so much as side-eyed a diaper since Reagan took one to the chest. Scaring off every tomato picker, dish washer, and future adult diaper-changer like they’re plague rats stuffed with anthrax. And out on the border, Emperor Trump, Supreme Reality Show Pharaoh clutching his golden shepherd’s crook like Moses on bath salts, eyes rolling back like a Pentecostal snake handler, ready to personally catapult your un-American keister back to whichever mud hut, festering mosquito swamp, sun-scorched goat pasture, or Guinness-soaked bog your face best reminds him of. Test The Donald, and you’ll be tongue-kissing angry alligators, crunching scorpion popsicles, or downing Guinness wrung from a Dublin storm drain faster than you can screech ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL!’
And don’t you dare let your ivory-tower conscience start weeping soy lattes about the moral maggot farm festering this grand republic. The “patriotic” plan is simpler than a possum trying to hump a running lawnmower. Purge the brown folks, terrify every tourist within ten time zones, and blame America’s sexless, zombified suburban meat sacks for not popping out enough squealing piglets to pay off the next trillion-dollar deficit. Because nothing screams “shining city on a hill” like ski-masked federal enforcers kneecapping a gardener in the driveway while his Marine sons watch Old Glory flapping over a hedge funder’s cocaine yacht. And don’t you dare compare this to Vlad the Impaler’s Romanian barbecue! This is authentic, uncut, purebred American exceptionalism, straight from the colon of a collapsing empire! Hahahaha!
Oh, Egypt, you are so wishy-washy! Why don't you just come straight out and tell us your perspective. Mincing words while watching the American Empire collapse as the Orange Beluga keeps the circus going isn't fair.
Yes, the U.S. faces real demographic and labor problems. Fewer people are being born, fewer citizens are entering physically demanding work, and immigration—legal or not—is keeping key industries afloat. Yes, the political class has failed to build a coherent immigration system for decades. And yes, some of the outrage being weaponized today is just recycled fear wrapped in patriotic branding.
But none of that gets better by turning border policy into theater. Mass deportations won’t fix a broken legal system. Demonizing desperate workers doesn’t solve wage stagnation. And pretending the future belongs to robots, walls, and nostalgia is a fantasy built to distract from the fact that real reform is hard, boring, and not great for fundraising.
Agreed, Americans want immigrants to come here.... LEGALLY!!! Why is that so hard for people, including Bill, to grasp? The illegal immigrants that I know personally are not contributing to Social Security… they work “under the table”. One has been in California for over 25 years and he sends the majority of his money back home to Mexico!
It’s not hard to grasp. People want a legal system that works. The problem is, it doesn’t. For many of the workers you’re talking about, there is no legal path. No line to stand in. No process that matches the jobs they’re already doing.
And yes, some undocumented workers get paid in cash and don’t contribute to Social Security. But many actually do. They use fake or borrowed Social Security numbers and still have payroll taxes deducted. That money goes into the system and stays there. No refunds. No benefits. Just silent contributions that help keep the whole thing afloat.
As for sending money back to Mexico—if someone’s been in the U.S. for 25 years, working, earning, and not asking for help, that says more about the broken system than about them. They’re good enough to do the work, but not good enough to be given a legal way to stay. That’s not on them. That’s on a policy that hasn’t been updated to match economic reality for decades.
So yes, legal immigration is the goal. But that only works if the law is built to meet real-world demand. Right now, it isn’t. And blaming people for walking through the only open door while Washington keeps the front one locked isn’t a solution. It’s a distraction.
Since it is clear Mr. Bonner is willing to ignore violations of U.S. immigration law, one is left to wonder what other laws Mr. Bonner would accept to be broken by a criminal border trespasser, as long as it is, ahem, not “violent”?
Suppose an industrious criminal border trespasser hacked into Mr. Bonner’s financial accounts and drained all of his money and gold. SURELY Mr. Bonner would be ok with this, and not be a hypocrite, seeing as how it was not a “violent” crime.
Instead of mooching off of the U.S. taxpayer, that poor “immigrant” simply looking for a better life would just be mooching off of Mr. Bonner. This definitely would be a better outcome for the U.S. taxpayers.
I’m just making sure I tread carefully; respectfully express my comments if replying to Mr Bonner, et al…and stay away from investment comments that could reflect negatively on BPR.
**SIGH**....
Why is it such a difficult concept to understand that Americans want immigrants to come here.... LEGALLY!!! Just a little vetting to ensure that the people coming are like-minded, will fit in well with American values, are willing to pledge allegiance and integrate to American society. IMO Latino's are well suited to join us. They generally have moral values similar to ours and a good work ethic. But they should be vetted, and we should issue work visa's based on the number of workers we need, and grant citizenship after maybe 5 years of residency and no offenses.
Erik -- It's not the immigrants' fault our borders are so porous.
Or for taking to heart the declaration etched on the Stature of Liberty ("... “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...")
Most have become productive, taxpaying citizens. There is no reason to expel them.
If we can put a man on the moon, then we can find a sensible way for the undocumented immigrants to become documented.
Chambers of Commerce, churches and/or clubs (Rotary, Kiwanis, etc) could be sites where they could register; provide copies of tax returns, letters of commendation from their employers, priests and pastors.
Trump has already prevented ICE from raiding factories and farms.
He should also stop all further raids for a specified period of time to allow the undocumented immigrants to prove they are ideal "keepers."
After all, they are no different than many of our forebears who arrived before immigration policies existed
What about the basic fairness of coming in legally versus jumping the line and taking a spot that someone who follows the rules could have had? You might be upset if I cut in line ahead of you at the theater and it then sells out just before you can get a ticket.
Erik -- No one "in line" was bumped out of it by someone who crossed the border illegally.
Those in line stay in line, often for years
Even those who know about how to apply to immigrate have to wait years before their application is approved to get in line.
It's even a torturous wait for people with sought after technical skills
Our immigration system is a mess.
And has been for centuries, primarily for religion and ethnic reasons (e. g. keeping Irish from immigrating because they were Catholic; Chinese because of their ethnicity; Mexicans because they are brown and dirty, etc)
I do not accept that a broken system is a valid excuse to violate the law.
My hope (admittedly perhaps naive) is that once the border is sealed and the criminal illegals removed that the system can be reformed to dramatically increase the number of legal immigrants that meet the criteria I mentioned above. And yes, I am OK with discriminatory policies that prefer certain groups over others, but consider individuals individually at the final gate. As the country was founded by protestants fleeing state religion, it was only natural they wanted to keep catholics out. Much has changed on that front. I would now argue that Catholic (latino's) are preferred, whereas I remain to be convinced that muslims in general are compatible with our system of government.
Bill forgot to mention abortion as a leading cause for lack of reproductivity. Talk about ghosts! Sixty three million since Rowe vs Wade. In 2023 over One million thirty seven thousand. I knew high. The graph is trending higher.. How many offspring would those 63 million people have produced? Perhaps they should add that number to the doom index. The price of mcdonald's hamburger price of corrugated..... number of abortions. I don't know the number but what was the actual cost of all those abortions?
All that said, legal immigration is awesome.We need to make it easier for those well qualified Who are likely to contribute to the GDP not draw from it like those in the above thesis.
You’re right to want the U.S. immigration system to be functional and fair. But the idea that the U.S. should first seal the border and remove “criminal illegals” before reforming anything has been the promise for decades—and it never plays out that way. What usually happens is the border gets more militarized, the political rhetoric gets louder, and real reform gets pushed even further out of reach. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy continues to rely on the very people being targeted—often in agriculture, construction, hospitality, and elder care—without offering them a legal way to stay or contribute fully.
As for being “okay with discriminatory policies,” that’s a dangerous path the U.S. has gone down before. The Chinese Exclusion Act, national origin quotas, and religious profiling didn’t make the country stronger—they just reflected old fears and assumptions that didn’t age well. And over time, many of the groups once seen as incompatible—Irish Catholics, Italian immigrants, Eastern European Jews—proved to be exactly the kind of contributors the country needed.
Saying today’s Muslim immigrants don’t align with U.S. values is repeating that same error, just with a different label. The real question isn’t what religion someone belongs to—it’s whether they respect the law, contribute to their community, and want to build a future. If they do, the smart move isn’t to keep them out—it’s to bring them in legally, let them pay taxes, earn their status, and help solve the very labor and demographic shortages the U.S. is now facing.
That’s not idealism. That’s long-term stability. And it's a policy shift the U.S. could benefit from—if politics didn’t keep getting in the way.
You make good points. I believe that after some period of the border being totally locked down as it is now and enough of the criminal element removed and deported, Americans will regain an appetite for immigrant labor. I think this might actually be an opening for democrats if they are able to admit they screwed the pooch under Biden, and say "OK, we do need secure borders AND a much better immigration system that allows a lot more people in but vets them and matches numbers with employment needs." However, you never just want to throw the doors open to anyone that wants to come work here as that will drive down labor pay. I personally would also like to see it tied to workfare reform. There is no point in bringing in immigrant labor when the labor force participation rate is at record lows. Able-bodied people should not be incented not to work. So, Americans of working age who can work should work. Any labor gaps are filled with *vetted* immigrants, and the border stays secure so that we control and know who we are allowing into the country. And as mentioned before, 5 years of good work record and no criminal record and you are eligible for citizenship.
Jimm, with all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Please tell us then, Mr. Genius Dave J,
Tell you what, that illegal immigration is a net loser for American taxpayers? These poor downtrodden souls that just want a better life don't pay nearly as much in taxes than they take from the state, county and municipal governments in terms of education, healthcare, the justice system, and under Biden they even received food and shelter. They don't come legally in many cases because they don't really want to work. Why buy the cow if the milk is free?
That’s a common claim — that undocumented immigrants take more than they give — but when you look at the actual numbers, it gets a lot more complicated. Multiple independent studies, including from the Cato Institute and the National Academy of Sciences, have shown that immigrants (even undocumented ones) contribute significantly to the U.S. economy, especially at the local level. They pay billions in taxes — sales tax, property tax (even if they rent), and billions more through payroll taxes using fake or borrowed Social Security numbers. They fund benefits they’ll never be eligible to collect.
As for “free food and shelter,” yes — in some cases, emergency aid has been provided, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to subsidies for other sectors. Try comparing that to corporate tax breaks or farm subsidies and see where the real money goes. And the idea that people cross deserts, risk arrest, and live in the shadows of a foreign country just to get free food stamps? That’s not laziness — that’s desperation. Most of them are working — in kitchens, fields, warehouses, nursing homes — jobs that are hard, underpaid, and often avoided by Americans altogether.
Now, if the U.S. doesn’t want to be in this situation forever, the solution isn’t punishment. It’s a functioning immigration system that matches reality — one that gives people a legal way to work, contribute, and yes, pay taxes. Otherwise, you're stuck with a black market labor force and all the costs that come with trying to pretend they’re not there.
Mr. Kandia, So you want mass amnesty for the third-world poor? Did you know that two-thirds of legal aliens from third-world countries vote Democrat? Do you think the third-world poor are going to vote for anyone except those who offer them endless amounts of free stuff that their third-world hell holes can't offer them? Over 95% percent of them will immediately vote Democrat upon becoming voters, and the debt will rise to unsustainable levels very quickly when the Democrats take over. Why do you think the Democrats opened the borders for four years, and now want mass amnesty so badly? Once the Dems get back in, they will reopen the borders, promising even more mass amnesty. This will cause another flood of third-world peasants to pour into the U.S. And as the Roman Empire discovered, moving from artisans to slave (cheap) labor was a very bad idea. When a country has lots of cheap labor, it rarely innovates and improves. And if cheap labor is go great, then why are third-world countries, which have tons of it, such hell holes? You would think all that cheap labor, and a strong belief in big govt., would make them super-rich.
And why isn't Japan, which has the toughest border and immigration policies in the world, as well as having a population that skews older and is extremely homogeneous, not facing starvation? Well, their policies and birth rates have forced them to mechanize and innovate a great deal. And leftists love Communist China, so why aren't they blasting their friends for having such tough immigration policies? Why aren't they demanding that Communist China take in tens of millions of third-world peasants?
As former Trump senior advisor Julia Hahn pointed out some years ago, the third-world culture is not conducive to first-world values because that culture believes government can do no harm. And ironically it's their belief in big, benevolent government that has caused their countries to be third-world hell holes.
Dave J -- The vast majority of those who immigrate to America did so to have a better life; not for welfare.
And of this vast majority (Russian Jews, Chinese laborers, Hispanics galore, Haitians, Vietnamese, Afghans, etc), most have prospered; some significantly
Many of the more recent are helped not by welfare but by churches, synagogues, communities and clubs (Rotarians, etc.).
And savor this: those that do receive welfare and abuse it are deported.
You seldom read about these deportations because few abuse the welfare they receive
What you said here has a smattering of truth, until four years ago. Biden and his merry band of drunken Marxists removed the work incentive and replaced it with a lot of free stuff. Did you not read what was happening in NYC, Chicago, Boston and many other large, Democrat run sh!tholes? They were throwing away the free food because it didn't satisfy their pallets!
It's as I said previously, the Dems strongly believe they will have permanent majorities if they can just import enough new voters. The financial data is clear, the American taxpayer loses bigly on the average illegal alien. That's after they factor in taxes (not a lot of tax gets paid when people work under the table BTW). I come from a border state with the most illegal aliens in the nation. I know of what I speak because I saw it first hand. (Not to mention being a landscaping contractor.) If you haven't lived it up close and personal, you just don't know.
The entire point of this nonsense is that in order to be a nation of law, and succeed, its citizens need to follow those laws. When you have arguably half the nation that breaks those laws, and promotes lawlessness, you have these Un-United States of America. President Trump did exactly what he was hired to do. Uphold the law, close the borders, and protect our citizens. The only correct way forward, is prosecuting those criminals responsible for allowing 20 million ILLEGALS freely into our country. To those demented people who don’t understand this, and continue to break the laws, maybe you should consider finding another country more sympathetic to your mental illness, before you too end up in Alligator Alcatraz🤔 😊
Right, they all did come for a better life. Some came work hard. Some to get free stuff by Leader legal means or otherwise. Criminal too came for a better life. The gangs came to f*** Americans and screw up their country just like they did their own. Better pickings here.
Please wake up. You are too respout that drivel.
except they came illegally
And the inability of Congress to act responsibly with integrity.
Totally fair to want a legal immigration process. Most people do. But here’s the thing—the U.S. system doesn’t work. It’s like telling someone to follow the rules of a board game, but half the rules are missing, the other half contradict each other, and there’s no way to win. For millions of low-skilled workers, there simply isn’t a legal path to apply. “Just come legally” sounds reasonable until you realize there is no line to get into. And asylum seekers? They’re in a different category altogether and already face heavy screening. Meanwhile, under Trump, ICE has bounced back and forth on whether to raid farms and factories. At one point they paused, likely because the industries that rely on immigrant labor pushed back—these are the people picking food, packing meat, cleaning hotels. Then they quietly resumed the raids. So the U.S. economy is depending on these workers while also threatening to deport them—and offering no realistic legal alternative. That’s not law and order. That’s dysfunction. If Americans actually want a fix, how about this: instead of chasing down the people who are already there, working, and contributing, give them a way to stay—legally. Let them pay taxes, earn status, and become citizens over time. That’s not open borders. That’s practical. Otherwise, it’s just blaming people for walking through the only open door while refusing to build one that works.
Bill is definitely tripping out over Trump & the right side policies. Have you ever seen him reference five (5) left leaning articles vs one (1) right leaning article? As BPR says "math doesn't lie", so that is 16.66% of right leaning information and 83.44% left leaning information. Al Jazeera? Seriously? Maybe Bill is another old guy who is pissed that someone like DJT is directing American traffic: John McCain, Mitt Romney, & Jerome Powell come to mind. Oh the end of non-partisan journalism, it is truly dead. RIP BPR
Immigrants are those who travel to the US legally and are grateful for the opportunities only available in the US. The remainder are illegal aliens who have thwarted the process by breaking into the US and besmudged immigrants who enter legally. There is a way to increase legal immigration; however, it is not possible right now given the sizeable quantity of illegal aliens.
Wanting people to work and produce and add to the domestic product is "left leaning"? Were your kids refused the opportunity to pick strawberries in hundred degree heat? When Trump succeeds in "Making the Rest of the World Great" and pushing our country into a 1930's depression (you probably know nothing about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff disaster), you'll be singing a different song. In the meantime, at least, we'll at least have the greatest military in the world, one that will be able to scare everyone to death, like that beautiful parade it staged to worship "Der Fuhrer" on his very sacred birthday. Or maybe, your soldier kids can find some poor defenseless country/city to drop bombs on--like Yemen, Iran (1952 and last month), Gaza, Iraq, Guatemala (1953), Argentina (1960's), Vietnam (1954-1973), Cambodia, Laos, Afghanistan, Angola, Philippines (1899 and 1945), Hiroshima, Serbia (to name a few actual examples). The one good product of Trump's right-wing assaults and torture chambers is that he's making people all over the world think twice about what they can do to improve their own and their countries' economies.
I have a platform to follow that best represents a path forward for a broke-ass country. What are your solutions? BPR speaks endlessly about deep state and the bankruptcy of the USA. What was USAID? A complete and utter deep state slush fund that betrayed the taxpayer; that was nothing new, but it's done now. Is BPR touting these changes/savings?
Illegal aliens were not part of the federal government being the number one new hires in the employment field, that was the political machine bankrupting the USA. Look at everything that's happening, government is changing because it was broken and literally broke. For all who worry for the rest of the world while things get straightened out here, send all your extra money abroad. Maybe those that believe the world deserves Americans' money will give their own instead of asking everyone to pay for policies that don't reflect the electorate desires.
It’s not foreigners who bankrupted (you’re probably right that it already happened) America, but the hopelessly corrupt MIC that Eisenhower drew attention to.
It’s fair to say the U.S. government has wasted money and let a lot of things slide for a long time. No argument there. But blaming it all on foreign aid or “illegals” misses the scale of the problem. USAID is a drop in the bucket compared to what gets spent on defense, Medicare, Social Security, interest on debt, and domestic bureaucracy. Cutting it might make a good headline, but it won’t fix a $36 trillion debt.
And about federal hiring - undocumented immigrants aren’t getting those jobs. They can’t. The people being hired into government positions are U.S. citizens. If the issue is bloat, that’s an internal one. Blaming migrants who are working under the table or picking produce for minimum wage doesn’t match reality. They’re not bankrupting anything. They're part of the economy that already exists.
If the system was broken, fine. Fix it. But let’s not pretend the solution is to wall everything off and send everyone home. If you're talking about real reform, it has to include updating immigration laws, adjusting spending priorities, and making government work for people again. Everything else is noise.
Jeez. I picked strawberries all through middle school in high school. I also detassled corn. The kids in my neighborhood now are denied the opportunity for those jobs because they ship wonders in to do it. That's how I paid my college that and a grocery store job.
I hope that you find your tail someday .
All the best.
Strawberry picking and detasseling corn are tough jobs. Props to you for doing them. But let’s be honest, that was a different time. Those jobs didn’t disappear because immigrants took them. They disappeared because most kids today are not lining up to do hard manual labor in the heat for low pay. Employers bring in migrant workers because no one else is showing up.
If the kids in your neighborhood really want those jobs, they still exist. But if no one applies, the work does not stop. Someone else fills the gap. That is not sabotage. That is supply and demand.
Some of what you say is true but several of the "poor defenseless countries" you cite bombed the hell out of their own citizens, their neighbors, or us before we got involved. I fully agree that some of Trump's methods of dealing with the immigration problem are wrongheaded but without an organized system of dealing with immigration, you don't have a country, you have a diverse mob.
True, but usually at different times and with different governments. Eg, In Iran we overthrew the first democratically elected government in the entire Middle East on behalf of our oil companies and imposed a ruthless dictatorship, the Shah. We overthrew the second elected government of Guatemala in 1953 on behalf of United Fruit (Chiquita today) and subsequent governments have slaughtered more than 500,000 indigenous Guatemalans since then. Too frequently, the US war machine (which, at 22 million killed, is approaching Nazi Germany’s world history record of killed) has acted on behalf of the local murderous governments, not the democratically elected ones. Chiquita, by the way, was recently convicted in US courts of hiring thugs to kill activists and farm workers in Colombia. And that’s the tip of the tip of the iceberg that human beings in other countries have been and are being subjected to.
You're right that some countries have ugly histories. No one’s denying that. But the idea that every person fleeing those places is somehow responsible for the actions of their government doesn't hold water. People don’t choose where they’re born. They escape because they’re trying to survive what their governments or militias did to them, not because they were part of it.
And yes, immigration needs order. No country can function without it. But describing it as a “diverse mob” says more about fear than about policy. What’s missing isn't toughness. It’s structure. The system has been broken for decades. Trump didn’t cause it, and Biden hasn’t fixed it. So the real question isn’t whether a border should exist. Of course it should. The question is whether the system behind it actually makes sense. Right now, it doesn’t. And the people taking the heat for that are the ones doing the jobs no one else wants, while Washington keeps kicking the can.
You’re right that journalism today can feel all over the map. But balance doesn’t mean forcing a 50-50 split between left and right sources just for show. If five outlets, whether left-leaning, international, or independent, are all reporting similar facts, maybe it’s not bias. Maybe it’s just reality. Dismissing a headline because it comes from Al Jazeera isn’t critical thinking. It’s filtering out anything that challenges the preferred narrative.
As for the immigrant versus "illegal alien" framing, I get the instinct to make a clean distinction. But that assumes people have an open and accessible legal path to follow, and in many cases, they don’t. For the majority of people trying to enter the U.S. from poorer or unstable countries, there’s no line to stand in. No process that actually works. So while it's easy to say, “they should have done it legally,” that’s a bit like telling someone to swim across a river when there’s no bridge and then blaming them for getting wet.
If there's a real desire to increase legal immigration, then great — the U.S. should do exactly that. But saying it’s not possible "right now" because there are too many undocumented people already there just keeps kicking the problem down the road. The reason there are so many in the first place is because the legal system hasn't kept up with demand for decades.
If the U.S. wants less illegal immigration, it needs a system that actually works. Otherwise it's just frustration and blame with no exit plan.
I don't think all those "immigrants" Bill gushes over that are sucking off the state, county and municipal government tits in large cities throughout the country are the answer. In fact, and you can look it up, the average illegal alien costs the American taxpayer about $9,500.00 a year net. Which means after they factor in the income and sales taxes the ones that work pay . . . we lose. Bill has a "selective news" fetish.
Agreed... why is it pro-illegal immigration folks argue taxpayers are better off with illegals?
It's against the law to hire an illegal.
In what world does this make sense? (besides Sacramento)
We need people to pick our lettuce don't you know? The problem with that whole ruse is that temporary employees that serve the agricultural sector come in on temporary Visas because that industry has learned how to do things the right way.
The people that came in during Biden's walk-in-a-polooza weren't coming to work, they were coming for the free stuff the Democrats were dangling because the Democrats see them as their ticket to perpetual power via the ballot box.
“The people that came in during Biden's walk-in-a-polooza weren't coming to work, they were coming for the free stuff the Democrats were dangling because the Democrats see them as their ticket to perpetual power via the ballot box.”….A-f*cking-MEN!!!
Thing is, when left to his own thoughts in a quiet moment, Mr. Bonner damn well knows that. But his left-leaning (likely Obiden voting) politics, coupled with absolute dislike of everything Trump, has rendered him unable to say it.
I don’t know Sluggo, I’m starting to think he really does believe his own BS. Think about it, he spews the EXACT same nonsense as the lunatic fringe in Congress! It’s really amazing.
Sadly, you’re likely spot-on. I was just unrealistically hoping he had some shred of intellectual clarity and honesty remaining…if nothing else, at least with himself.
The theory sounds airtight until you actually look at how any of it works.
Undocumented immigrants can’t vote. Not now, not next election, not anytime soon. The idea that Democrats are handing out citizenship like coupons to win elections ignores the years-long process it takes just to get a green card, let alone a ballot. If that’s their master plan, it’s a terrible one.
As for the “free stuff” idea, sure, there’s been emergency housing and basic aid in some cities. But most of these people aren’t getting welfare checks and benefit packages. They’re picking produce, cleaning hotels, working kitchens, and taking jobs most Americans haven’t wanted in years. That’s not entitlement. That’s labor.
And let’s be real. If Bonner was truly a diehard progressive, he wouldn’t spend so much time bashing debt spending, fiat money, and government overreach. He takes shots at everyone. You can disagree with his tone or his takes, but pretending he’s towing the Democrat line just because he doesn’t praise Trump is lazy thinking.
If the border matters—and it does—then focus on fixing the system. Yelling about “Obiden” and imaginary armies of voter-farmers doesn’t solve a thing. It just keeps the noise going.
...the "we need people to do what Americans won't" ...really?
100 years ago, "legal" Americans did all that stuff, wash dishes, clean toilets, shine shoes.
Are "things" so different now?
Or are we propagated to believe there should be a select class of Americans that are expected to do the dirty work....
Yes we are. I don't want to say too much on a public forum like this, but in the Los Angeles area there are countless illegals that "double dip". The men work for cash money (the green stuff denominated in 10's, 20's and 100's) and then the women apply for and receive public benefits ("for the children" as ping pong eyes Pelosi is wont to tell us). This is how they are able to send so much money "back home".
I know of cases where the women attempt to stop their welfare benefits and the government case workers talk them out of it because the more people taking those benefits the more job security there is for the case workers. All paid for by American taxpayers. It's disgusting.
California Civic leaders are hell bent on providing even more illegal taxpayer aid.
They want to raid the "emergency reserves" to aid illegals!
(how that's supposed to stop ICE I have no idea, and neither do they)
We are told over again: "immigrants" are what built this country.
Omitting, forgetting or just ignoring the "illegal".
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In Orange County (California) I took a frightening wrong turn on my bicycle yesterday...
Ended up in a "diversity" neighborhood.
Cars parked on the lawn, cars parked double, cars blocking egress... graffiti, trash, abandoned vehicles.
I did not feel comfortable riding through there...
Signage was in Spanish, population was not diverse, they're all from South America.
Orange County (home to Sanctuary Cities) is so overcrowded with illegals; there is no room for parking!
...and Sacramento wants to start issuing building permits with reduced or no parking spaces.
Allowing millions in illegally; and then putting it all on taxpayers because "we have a housing crisis don't ya know"!
Gee... I wonder why...
This is what Sacramento wants, housing = income.
What Sacramento wants = implosion of the state.
Sounds like Santa Ana.
It’s easy to take a bike ride through a rough neighborhood and assume it’s all the result of illegal immigration. But poverty, overcrowding, and poor urban planning existed long before this wave of migration. Graffiti, double parking, and broken infrastructure aren’t exclusive to any one group. They're symptoms of a city that's grown faster than it was managed. You could find the same issues in parts of Detroit, Philly, or rural towns where immigration isn’t even on the radar.
As for emergency reserves and aid, yes, some California cities are using temporary funds to handle the strain. But let’s be clear — this didn’t start with immigrants. It started with a housing market warped by decades of restrictive zoning, investor buying, and endless population growth. The system was already cracked. Migration just pushed the pressure higher.
And on the line about “immigrants built this country,” it’s not meant to ignore the word “illegal.” It’s meant to remind people that nearly every wave of immigrants was treated like this at some point. Irish, Italians, Chinese, Mexicans — all accused of lowering standards, swamping neighborhoods, and ruining the country. And yet, they stayed, worked, paid taxes, raised families, and became part of the story. It’s not clean or simple, but it’s the pattern.
If California’s policies are broken, fine. Call them out. Push for smarter zoning, better transit, and more housing options. But blaming all of it on the people at the bottom of the pile won’t fix any of it. It just gives the people at the top a free pass to keep building a system that doesn’t work for anyone.
In Australia, Dave J, the Muslims take a 2nd wife or 3 or 4 and they are all on welfare!
And you reckon you got a problem haha.
Isn't it amazing how government is so gullible? There's nothing less efficient, more corrupt or that needs to be as small as possible.
If people are working for cash under the table, that’s not ideal. But that isn’t a loophole created by immigrants. It’s one that’s been built and maintained by employers, landlords, and entire industries that benefit from cheap, quiet labor. It’s not like ICE is blind to the lawn crews and kitchen staffs across major cities. It’s just easier to look the other way when the economy runs on it.
As for public benefits, undocumented immigrants don’t qualify for most federal aid. They can’t get food stamps, Medicaid, or welfare. The one exception is for U.S.-born children, who are citizens and therefore eligible. Whether you agree with that or not, that’s the law as written.
The story about case workers refusing to cancel benefits sounds like one of those tales that’s been passed around so many times it starts to feel true. Maybe it happened once. But it’s not policy, and it’s not how state programs are designed to function. Most social workers are underpaid and overworked. They’re not padding their job security by begging people to stay on welfare.
If the system needs reform, fine. Reform it. But pinning the blame entirely on immigrants while ignoring the economic structures that make all of this possible just keeps the outrage flowing while the status quo stays right where it is.
Yes, Americans used to do all that work. So did recent immigrants. The difference isn’t that the work changed. The economy did.
A hundred years ago, a guy could support a family by cleaning floors or working a factory line. Now, most of those jobs don’t even pay enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment. It’s not that Americans are too proud to work. It’s that they can do the math. When a fast food job pays less than the gas it takes to get there, they walk away. When picking produce in 40-degree heat for 12 hours a day barely covers groceries, they look for something else.
So yes, things are different now. Not because there’s a ruling class handing out mop buckets to the rest, but because the cost of living exploded while wages at the bottom stayed frozen. Immigrants—especially undocumented ones—fill those roles because they have fewer options and more pressure to take what they can get. That’s not a conspiracy. That’s market pressure.
If wages were fair and housing wasn't a joke, more Americans would probably do that work again. Until then, the system keeps depending on the people it refuses to acknowledge.
Anthony Bourdain commented that in 40 years running kitchens never once did a white boy apply for dishwasher duties.
...my original lament referred to 100 years ago, not the last decade... and your pointlessness furthers as it does not outline the conditions in which Anthony advertised employment or the cultural environment where he employs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/w36t4i/not_oc_worth_sharing_from_one_of_the_greats/
...I read it twice, Anthony Bourdain never quite explained why it is they don't return to Mexico other than hinting their gov't sucks...
So far as "white" dishwashers, my original lament referred to 100 years ago, not the last decade...
Apparently the Bonner’s of the world think that way. He’s a racist and it’s disgusting.
Yes, there are legal temporary visas for agricultural work. That’s true. But they don’t come close to covering the labor that’s needed, and the process is slow, limited, and buried in red tape. Plenty of growers still rely on undocumented labor because the legal channels are too narrow or too expensive. That’s not a ruse. That’s a broken system that nobody’s fixed.
The idea that people showed up under Biden just to grab free stuff makes for a good soundbite, but it falls apart when you look at what life is actually like without legal status. Most of those people can’t get federal benefits. They work under the table, they pay into programs they can’t access, and they live with the constant risk of being detained or deported. That isn’t freeloading. That’s surviving.
And no, they’re not voting. They can’t. The path from undocumented to citizen takes years, if it happens at all. The “importing voters” theory sounds clever, but it ignores the basic facts of how naturalization and voting rights work.
If you want to know why this keeps going in circles, here it is. Congress hasn’t fixed the system because neither party actually wants it fixed. Both sides use immigration as a political prop. One side talks about lawlessness and invasion, the other about compassion and inclusion. Real reform would mean compromise. It would mean admitting hard truths. That this labor is needed. That some people will need a path to stay. That enforcement still matters. And that yelling about it for another twenty years won't change anything.
But compromise doesn’t get anyone elected. Outrage does. That’s why nothing changes.
...we are circling back to the basics.
Uneducated folks do not converse with educated folks, they only serve.
The cast is wide..
The gov't can't force folks to be educated, can't control their individual behavior and cannot dictate their lifestyle.
The gov't can't do anything about the fact people prefer their own tribes.
No one is saying breaking the law is ideal. The issue is that the law, as it stands, does not match how the economy actually works. It is illegal to hire undocumented workers, yes. But it still happens every day because there is demand for labor and no realistic legal path to meet that demand.
Businesses are not hiring undocumented workers out of kindness. They hire them because the work needs to get done and few others are willing to do it. Agriculture, construction, food service, and elder care all depend heavily on immigrant labor, whether those workers have papers or not. If you removed every undocumented worker overnight, a lot of industries would collapse, and prices would rise across the board.
It may not make clean legal sense. But relying on enforcement alone, without fixing the system behind it, just keeps the situation broken. When laws ignore economic reality, people find ways around them. That is not support for breaking the rules. That is how pressure builds when a system refuses to evolve. If you want less illegal hiring, make legal hiring possible. Everything else is just noise.
...I know for fact there are 2 reasons to hire an illegal.
1) they have skills that can't be found, because "others with the skill" have left the state to be with their own tribes.
2) the employer has no choice because the local workforce demographic is almost entirely illegal (Santa Ana).
I’ve looked it up. The $9,500 number gets tossed around a lot, but it's from think tanks with an axe to grind. Groups like FAIR push that number by stacking up every possible cost while downplaying or ignoring long-term contributions. It’s like calculating the cost of a student without factoring in what they’ll earn, build, or pay back over a lifetime.
Serious studies, including from the National Academies of Sciences, show a more complicated picture. First-generation immigrants, especially low-income ones, can cost more in the short term, mostly at the state and local level. But their kids contribute more than they consume and often outperform the average American in education and income. That’s how the U.S. economy has worked for generations. High upfront cost, long-term return. That’s not leeching. That’s investment.
And let’s not pretend most undocumented immigrants are lounging on the system. They’re working in agriculture, food prep, construction, and elder care. Many pay taxes through fake Social Security numbers, which means they’re funding programs they can’t collect from. That’s not freeloading. That’s subsidizing.
If someone wants to argue that the system needs reform, I agree. But slapping a dollar figure on every undocumented person without context doesn’t make the argument stronger. It just makes it louder.
Does anyone ask the question - Why is it that the natives don't want to have more children? Perhaps our elites have created an economy that makes having kids an onerous task for the average young couple. Our great leaders have created an economy that requires two incomes to keep afloat. Thus, get up, get the kids ready, drop them off at daycare, go to work, etc. Plus, the housing bubble puts houses out of reach for many.
Couple that with skyrocketing insurance and medical costs and it's alot easier to skip having kids. If I were just getting married and had to join that rat race I definitely wouldn't be eager to have children.
Bill never mentions the fact that over a million are known felons with heinous records. Maybe he wants them next to him but not me. For every mistake an ICE or immigration official makes there are ten thousand correct things they do. I like the odds.
If someone is a violent felon and not supposed to be in the country, then yes, deport them. No one is defending that. But pulling out “over a million known felons” without context is how fear turns into policy paralysis. The majority of undocumented immigrants do not have criminal records beyond immigration violations. That is not an opinion. It is confirmed by multiple government studies, including ICE’s own data.
And if we are going to talk about crime, let’s be clear. Native-born Americans commit it too, and at higher rates. You do not solve anything by acting like crime is something brought in from the outside.
You are right that ICE gets it right a lot of the time. But the stakes are high when they get it wrong. Families are separated. Legal residents are detained. People are deported for low-level offenses. You might like the odds, but if it is your family in the one percent, the math feels different.
The real solution is a system that can tell the difference between actual threats and people trying to build a life. Right now, everything is lumped together. That is why it keeps breaking down.
Ice data 0.1 percent . 90 percent already apprehended….
I have always wondered about the "premise for more"...
Most everything we do as mankind is to "grow", "perpetual production", "make more of"... at what point does this stop?
Do we really need more?
People, pollution, congestion, depleting resources and ecological ruin?
Why is it so damned critical that we continue to "grow"?
Quantity over quality?
It can only stop in two ways, the first in which humans realize and appreciate the earth is finite.
...the other is when the earth tells us so...
In our debt-based economy new dollars must be created and ever-expanding, otherwise the system will be seen for what it is and collapse, as all Ponzi does when there is insufficient new input. Contrarily, the real resources on which life is based does have finiteness. The two systems are ultimately incompatible and one must succumb to the victor. One guess as to which one prevails. Maybe a look at a chart of true inflation over a century or so, before fiat would provide a hint.
You wrote my planned reply for me--just better than I would have done!
Thanks, I watched an interview of Lawrence Lepard and Chris Martenson yesterday. Larry has the answer but it likely will not happen anytime soon, if ever: Abolish the Fed and return to honest money. I sincerely doubt that will happen voluntarily (by the “Cahooters”, ie Fed and US gubmint).
Angry -- You penned a perspective we share. More of our species mean less of all others with which we share this planet.
And more of our species also means more congestion, consumption, cars, cost and crime, the proverbial Five C's
Case in point: I live in a small town surrounded by other but larger towns. It consists of 15 square miles. No more roads can be built.
The city is run by Democratic Party apparatchiks whose decisions are predicated on the aphorism of Density for Dollars
As they issue building permits galore for tall "people boxes," what charm exists is fast being altered by the Five C's
...I like your premise of 5 "C's" however pleez excuse me for expanding.
"Cars" are "Congestion".
Consumption is not a vice unless it's appreciable.
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Costs, Crime, Corruption, Congestion and Contamination.
I might add Complacency, Conformity, Carelessness, Convolution and Civil apathy.
What we need are the 5 good C's:
Concern, Compassion, Conserve, Common Sense and Constitution.
Angry -- Your Good C's make good sense
As for cars, if no more roads can be built and if evermore cars use them, congestion occurs, more so during rush hours
No growth = no babies = no future.
I get the appeal of pulling the emergency brake on civilization and saying, “Enough.” It feels wise. Responsible. But here’s the problem: the systems we’ve built—pensions, healthcare, even the basic promise that your lights will turn on—are all wired for growth. Stop feeding them, and they don’t gently wind down. They implode.
No babies? No workers.
No workers? No taxpayers.
No taxpayers? No state.
And no state means good luck funding all the “quality of life” we're supposed to be protecting by stopping growth in the first place.
But here’s where I agree with you: the kind of growth we’ve been chasing is broken. We’ve treated the planet like it’s infinite and the future like it’s guaranteed. That’s not growth—that’s hubris.
So maybe the real task isn’t to kill growth. It’s to redefine it.
Not more junk.
Not more people packed into cities with collapsing infrastructure.
But more capability. More efficiency. More durability. More time.
Less “stuff,” more substance.
It’s not growth or collapse.
It’s smart growth or stupid extinction.
And right now, we’ve been leaning hard into the stupid.
"All the accepted best countries in the world to live" are primarily of the same tribe (heritage) and have the most educated populations.
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Population is not the problem; everyone in the world, ...all 8 billion of us, sitting in our own 10' X 10' room would fit in the state of South Carolina, with room to spare.
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The problem is distribution.
Whether war, political, economic or natural; folks toil, die, fight over distribution of goods and resources.
Problems arise when things are hoarded, withheld, not distributed...
These decisions are heavily influenced within the culture of the people.
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If the distribution problems were resolved, wasteful consumption would be reduced and resources more equally distributed.
The general quality of life would be improved... less wars, less poverty etc...
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Your response is somewhat unrealistic as you eliminate entirely "no taxpayers, no workers... that's simply not the case.
There would still be plenty, in fact likely plenty more for everyone!
Illegal immigration is not the solution. Legal immigration is the solution. Our congress needs to get their act together and pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. It is too difficult to immigrate legally. The procedures are archaic and frustrating to the applicants.
We need legal immigrants. Immigrants that want to contribute to society instead of living off of our largess. Immigrants that embrace the American dream and want to become Americans.
Here we go again, with Mr. Bonner unable to correctly identify the criminal border trespassers. They are NOT “immigrants.”
Further, apparently Mr. Bonner is taking the position that, as long as a criminal border trespasser does not commit a “violent” crime while in the United States illegally, then it is acceptable for a criminal border trespasser to violate U.S. immigration law, and this should be excused and overlooked.
Man. The leftist mind is a tangled, confused, cognitive dissonant place indeed.
Indeed it is. Problem is, they get weak minded people to agree with their simplistic and misleading, misguided views and conclusions.
Calling every undocumented person a “criminal border trespasser” might feel satisfying, but it is not how the law or the system works. Entering the U.S. without authorization is a civil violation in most cases, not a criminal one. Reentry after deportation can be a felony, yes. But lumping everyone into one big criminal category isn’t accuracy. It’s branding.
No one is saying the law should be ignored. The point is that the law should make sense. Right now, the U.S. has no workable path for the kind of labor it clearly depends on. That is not an excuse. It is a policy failure. People are not coming because they found a legal loophole. They are coming because the demand for their labor is real and the system for managing it is outdated.
If you want fewer people crossing illegally, build a system that lets them apply legally. Until then, calling them names doesn’t change the reality. It just keeps the shouting going while nothing gets fixed.
"Entering the U.S. without authorization is a civil violation in most cases, not a criminal one"
This is bull💩, Lucas. Unlawful entry into the US is a felony. The fact that the offense normally results in civil penalties only doesn't change that. Stop with the lies.
Bill couldn't we replace our population needs through legal immigration? Also Bill, even the least sophisticated of your readers knows enough not the belive everything they read. Yet you find it necessary to reprint and reference left-learning media to support your covert distain for the present administration. What ever happened to your mantra "just connecting the dots". Please connect the dots and do not contribute to the media noise, as I can find that for free elsewhere.
You’re almost there. Yes, the U.S. could absolutely meet its population and labor needs through legal immigration. But here’s the part that gets missed. The legal system does not allow for it. The number of employment-based green cards is capped at levels that no longer reflect reality. There is no clear or workable path for most of the people the economy quietly depends on. So when people say, “Just come legally,” that might sound reasonable, but in many cases there is no line to stand in and no door to knock on. They are not skipping the process. The process is not there.
And if that is the case, what does mass deportation solve? It does not fix the labor shortage. It does not change the laws. It does not magically make citizens appear to pick crops, prepare food, clean buildings, or care for aging parents. It just deepens the chaos. Deport millions of people and all you have done is rip out the foundation without building anything to stand on.
The system is broken. Not just on paper, but in practice. It does not match the demand. It does not process applications efficiently. It has been ignored by both parties for decades. So no, deportation does not fix that. All it does is punish people for stepping into a vacuum that Washington refuses to fill.
As for Bill’s media sources, yes, some of them lean left at times. But that does not mean the facts are wrong. When multiple outlets from different backgrounds report the same trends, that is not a signal to tune out. That is when you start connecting dots.
So yes, hold the media to a higher standard. But do not ignore what is broken just because the source does not match your politics. This is not about defending one party or the other. It is about fixing a system that no one has had the political courage to fix. And until that happens, yelling about the symptoms will not cure the disease.
For the sake of securing their votes, we put our working class on welfare, and then wondered why we had to pay immigrants under the table to get menial tasks done. Then, we found out that these underground workers could do semi-skilled, and even skilled work, but cheaper. Bonus! Good for us! Next thing you know, the country is out of control. This is just what the political class wanted: a perfect storm of chaos with which to fundamentally transform the country and take control via top-down, big-government suffocation. As Liberace would say when flashing his jewelry to the audience: "You like it? You paid for it." Best always. PM
Ha! Thanks Paul, brings back memories of my grandmother. She loved Liberace and attended a few of his shows and owned his records. We used to make a little fun of her over it 😂, to no avail. She thought he had exquisite taste!!! I wish she was still around. I miss her, AND Liberace. He did have a great sense of humor and never missed a chance to not take himself too seriously.
Like most successful people, he knew the score. Best always. PM
You are not wrong to be cynical. There is truth buried in that frustration. The working class got squeezed, jobs were outsourced or devalued, and the safety net turned into a patch for wage stagnation. That did not happen by accident. It happened because it was easier for politicians and corporations to bring in cheaper labor and cover the gaps with public programs than to deal with the core problem. Wages stopped keeping up with the cost of living, and no one in power wanted to fix it.
Where it starts to go off track is the idea that this was all some grand plan to take control of the country. It was not a master plan. It was drift. No one took responsibility, and both sides learned to benefit from the chaos. Immigrants did not cause that. They showed up to do the work that still needed doing. Blaming them just distracts from the people who had the power to fix things and chose not to.
So yes, Liberace was right about one thing. You did pay for it. But it was not the guy mowing lawns or cleaning buildings who took your money. It was the people who kept telling you the system was fine while making sure it stayed broken.
I did not mean to imply that the victims are at fault. If I did, I did not intend that. You cite drift as opposed to evil intent as the cause. I can cite examples against that (LBJ's play to the black vote, for example), but for the sake of brevity, let's ask, "Who caused that drift?" Who had the power to stop it? Did someone who sacrificed his personal ease and comfort to bring 5 capable, well-taught, fundamentally sound children to adulthood for the good of the country and society, did that individual cause drift or did he fight it? Did he watch his non-participating cohorts pass the plate when it came to them? Whence drift? Best always. PM
What ever happened to work permits and legal immigration? Maybe those avenues could be given a 2nd look.
That’s exactly the right instinct. Work permits and legal immigration are the answer. The problem is the current system makes them almost impossible for the people who need them most. Caps are outdated. Processing is slow. And there’s no real path for the kind of low-wage, high-demand jobs that keep the economy running.
So yes, take a second look. But not just at the idea—at the actual system that’s supposed to support it. If you want people to follow the rules, the rules have to exist and make sense. Right now, they don’t. That’s why so many people end up in the shadows. Not because they want to cheat the system, but because the system left them out before they even started.
Apply, vet, come on in OR get on waiting list. Seems pretty simple. So simple that it needed to be politicized.
This morning I saw a segment on Fox Business which reported that a well known billionaire and AI expert believes that construction workers will be replaced by robots and AI. If so, we will need less manual labor, not more. Another story from personal experience. When I moved to Oregon in 2009, a certain blueberry field required multiple vans of laborers for the harvest, probably around 40 or 50 people. Before I left in 2017, it was done with less than 5 workers and one amazing machine. The future is less people and more technology. Those asking for more illegal labor to pick crops and do other manual tasks are ignorant or lying politicians, or both.
You’re right that automation is changing a lot, especially in farming and construction. I watched a 3D-printed building go up in Casa Grande a couple of years ago—molded concrete, machine-built, and impressive. But even then, it still needed people. Humans had to set it up, monitor it, and finish everything the machine couldn’t do. Same with harvesters. I’ve seen the machines in action. They can cut labor way down, but they’re not a full replacement. Not yet.
The leap from “machines are improving” to “we don’t need labor anymore” sounds clean on paper, but it doesn’t match what’s happening on the ground. Most automation only works in certain conditions, with certain crops, and it’s expensive. Small and mid-sized farms still rely on human labor because the tech isn’t scalable, affordable, or flexible enough.
So yes, the future might involve fewer workers. But it’s not here yet. And until it is, those jobs still need to be done. Immigration—legal or otherwise—is filling a gap that the current labor market doesn’t want and that machines can’t fully handle. That’s not political spin. That’s the part nobody wants to say out loud while they wait for the robots to catch up.
Mr. Bonner’s dropping these missives like he’s mainlining nitroglycerin in a clown car demolition derby, he ain’t just after the Triple Crown, he’s here to strangle the Four Horsemen with his bare hands and wear their skulls like bowling trophies. Meanwhile, the maggot-infested tombs of Wall Street and DC’s vampire lairs echo with the sterile sobs of men who haven’t so much as side-eyed a diaper since Reagan took one to the chest. Scaring off every tomato picker, dish washer, and future adult diaper-changer like they’re plague rats stuffed with anthrax. And out on the border, Emperor Trump, Supreme Reality Show Pharaoh clutching his golden shepherd’s crook like Moses on bath salts, eyes rolling back like a Pentecostal snake handler, ready to personally catapult your un-American keister back to whichever mud hut, festering mosquito swamp, sun-scorched goat pasture, or Guinness-soaked bog your face best reminds him of. Test The Donald, and you’ll be tongue-kissing angry alligators, crunching scorpion popsicles, or downing Guinness wrung from a Dublin storm drain faster than you can screech ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL!’
And don’t you dare let your ivory-tower conscience start weeping soy lattes about the moral maggot farm festering this grand republic. The “patriotic” plan is simpler than a possum trying to hump a running lawnmower. Purge the brown folks, terrify every tourist within ten time zones, and blame America’s sexless, zombified suburban meat sacks for not popping out enough squealing piglets to pay off the next trillion-dollar deficit. Because nothing screams “shining city on a hill” like ski-masked federal enforcers kneecapping a gardener in the driveway while his Marine sons watch Old Glory flapping over a hedge funder’s cocaine yacht. And don’t you dare compare this to Vlad the Impaler’s Romanian barbecue! This is authentic, uncut, purebred American exceptionalism, straight from the colon of a collapsing empire! Hahahaha!
Oh, Egypt, you are so wishy-washy! Why don't you just come straight out and tell us your perspective. Mincing words while watching the American Empire collapse as the Orange Beluga keeps the circus going isn't fair.
Egypt is good entertainment though.
Yes, the U.S. faces real demographic and labor problems. Fewer people are being born, fewer citizens are entering physically demanding work, and immigration—legal or not—is keeping key industries afloat. Yes, the political class has failed to build a coherent immigration system for decades. And yes, some of the outrage being weaponized today is just recycled fear wrapped in patriotic branding.
But none of that gets better by turning border policy into theater. Mass deportations won’t fix a broken legal system. Demonizing desperate workers doesn’t solve wage stagnation. And pretending the future belongs to robots, walls, and nostalgia is a fantasy built to distract from the fact that real reform is hard, boring, and not great for fundraising.
Agreed, Americans want immigrants to come here.... LEGALLY!!! Why is that so hard for people, including Bill, to grasp? The illegal immigrants that I know personally are not contributing to Social Security… they work “under the table”. One has been in California for over 25 years and he sends the majority of his money back home to Mexico!
It’s not hard to grasp. People want a legal system that works. The problem is, it doesn’t. For many of the workers you’re talking about, there is no legal path. No line to stand in. No process that matches the jobs they’re already doing.
And yes, some undocumented workers get paid in cash and don’t contribute to Social Security. But many actually do. They use fake or borrowed Social Security numbers and still have payroll taxes deducted. That money goes into the system and stays there. No refunds. No benefits. Just silent contributions that help keep the whole thing afloat.
As for sending money back to Mexico—if someone’s been in the U.S. for 25 years, working, earning, and not asking for help, that says more about the broken system than about them. They’re good enough to do the work, but not good enough to be given a legal way to stay. That’s not on them. That’s on a policy that hasn’t been updated to match economic reality for decades.
So yes, legal immigration is the goal. But that only works if the law is built to meet real-world demand. Right now, it isn’t. And blaming people for walking through the only open door while Washington keeps the front one locked isn’t a solution. It’s a distraction.
Just a question for Dan Denning.
You announced a special report on "Fourth Turning mixed with The Great Taking" this weekend.......
It´s monday I believe.
Since it is clear Mr. Bonner is willing to ignore violations of U.S. immigration law, one is left to wonder what other laws Mr. Bonner would accept to be broken by a criminal border trespasser, as long as it is, ahem, not “violent”?
Suppose an industrious criminal border trespasser hacked into Mr. Bonner’s financial accounts and drained all of his money and gold. SURELY Mr. Bonner would be ok with this, and not be a hypocrite, seeing as how it was not a “violent” crime.
Instead of mooching off of the U.S. taxpayer, that poor “immigrant” simply looking for a better life would just be mooching off of Mr. Bonner. This definitely would be a better outcome for the U.S. taxpayers.
Oh my Sluggo, you sir, are indeed BACK!!!
I’m just making sure I tread carefully; respectfully express my comments if replying to Mr Bonner, et al…and stay away from investment comments that could reflect negatively on BPR.