People who buy property want to protect it and increase its value, so they have every incentive to vote for and support zoning and construction regulations. This is similar to immigration. People who immigrated earlier are the most vocal supporters of stricter immigration rules for future immigrants because they are afraid that a fresh influx of immigrants will reduce their competitiveness.
> People who buy property want to protect it and increase its value
They do this because they need investments, and all other forms of investment are less appealing due to regulation/risk. They need investments due to the misguided economic cargo culting that inflation is necessary, to promote investment. So the people invest. In property.
You can see this magnified in China where traditional types of investments are unavailable, so the property bubble is constantly growing as it is constantly bursting.
People follow the incentives, and not just the incentives set by the government, but the incentives of reality. If you drop a boulder, the river doesn't just stop; the river flows around it.
The rules are meant to prevent or make it more difficult for people to immigrate legally. Every additional rule only complicates legal immigration. How did people immigrate in 1900? They simply showed up at the border and signed in, and that was it. It was simple and legal, and there was no illegal immigration. And those first immigrants started adding rule by rule to prevent other people from coming. With each new rule, it has become increasingly challenging for people to immigrate legally, leading them to find alternative ways.
Obviously, we should talk about the period after 1875 when the Supreme Court declared regulation of immigration a federal responsibility. There is little point to talking about a time when the known population of the U.S. was less than 5 million. Lets talk about the 20-21rst century.
Social Security Program was created in 1935. Medicaid was established in 1965. Non-citizens became eligible for social security in 1996. Why talk about ancient history when there was little to no burden in citizenship ?
Something like 1/3 of immigrants to the USA in the first part of the 1900s ended up returning to their home countries. It was a much different landscape and situation back then.
immigration rules only apply to legal immigrants. So stricter immigration rules is more of a "screw you got mine" kind of thing, illegal immigrants would only be affected by border enforcement and job availability once they got in (which is crazily easy in the USA vs. a country like Canada).
I believe now there are rules on when undocumented immigrants are allowed to apply for amnesty: when the number of illegal immigrants encountered at the border are less than 1500 / day for a week. so now the definition of illegal is directly linked to how many do the activity on a weekly basis.
> immigration rules only apply to legal immigrants.
No, this is clearly false. Rules apply to illegal immigrants too - those who just crossed the border without approval or prior paperwork. Those rules are rather lax and are not enforced as can be seen in the current administration and "sanctuary" states - who simply ignore the rules.
It is sad, because the rules that would really stop illegal immigration, heavy penalties on people who employ them (like Mitt Romney and Donald Trump) are heavily opposed by Republicans. This basically stops the problem completely in Canada, since even if you show up, you can't get any work/money.
I get the feeling that no one is really serious about stopping this problem, since even the rules they propose are obviously ineffective (and probably meant to be).
Funny, the rules that would stop illegal immigration aren't enforced (sever punishment for those providing the job that are encouraging it), but the laws that create a perpetual underclass/powerless class are enforced just enough to keep that class in check (but not enforced enough to prevent the existence of a major source of exploitable labour).
