I don't think that's so clear anymore. A lot of the people being deported came in on various refugee visas. While people who were brought here as children may technically be illegal, in practice that blurs the line. Similar with illegal immigrants who are spouses of legal immigrants. Then there's situations like students who came here legally but are having their visa's revoked for political reasons.
It's not clear because a large number of media outlets have constantly conflated them on purpose. "Trump wants to cut illegal immigration" "Well, being against immigration, legal or... undocumented... is racist".
The current U.S. administration, though, has made very tangible, if unconstitutional, efforts to denaturalize foreign-born and even U.S.-born citizens. Both of these acts would also be destabilizing, to say the least, if they are allowed to take place.
We should allow anyone who wants to come to the US, to come here, to use our welfare system (housing and food are a HUMAN RIGHT). Learning a new language is also pretty damn hard and the US citizens are pretty well educated, so we ought to all learn Spanish to be hospitable neighbors to our new residents. If they don't want to work, that's fine, I myself sometimes don't feel like working and that's a human right too. If someone feels that way about work, they still ought to be able to eat, live, sleep, safely, and receive medical care.
The relevant question in this context is how the number is changing. It's entirely irrelevant that the US has the most immigrants, or even that it is bringing in a lot, if the rate is changing to such a level that, per the article, "the number of foreign-born workers in the United States is already shrinking after years of rapid growth".
It doesn't matter if you think this change is good or bad, it will necessarily have economic knock-on effects and you need to decide if those are good or bad, and if bad if they are worth it.
I'm saying it's a different number. Saying "people here illegally will work for below minimum wage and don't need Obamacare contributions so your goods can be cheaper" is an economic statement, sure, but it would also have applied to slavery.
And that would've been a reasonable point, if people here had made that argument, but the person you first responded to only pointed out that the war on immigrants is inflationary, and that was also what I supported.
It's reasonably to argue that the way illegal migrants are used as cheap labour is a problem, but that doesn't alter the economic reality of the effect reducing it has.
You then need to choose whether you're willing to take that cost and/or whether you instead want to remove the ability of employers to exploit these workers this way.
> It doesn't matter if you think this change is good or bad, it will necessarily have economic knock-on effects and you need to decide if those are good or bad, and if bad if they are worth it.
Which sounds like morality is irrelevant, and only economic utility matters.
The graph presented in the article, and I assume the conclusions from it, is all foreign born workforce, regardless of legality, visa or citizenship status.
On illegal immigrants. The US has the most immigrants[0] and is bringing in about a million a year more through legal routes.
[0] https://worldostats.com/country-stats/immigration-and-emigra...