If you don't care about the political background and just want the meat of the Shadowrun portion of the thread, jump to the end.

A pretty big political situation here in America currently is the "Immigrant Problem." That is to say the influx of illegal aliens and their effect on the job market. As noncitizens they have much fewer rights when it comes to employment. Because of that they will frequently work for much less than the govenerment proscribed minimum wage, and are therefor viewed as having taken jobs away from actual citizens. Becuse of this, large groups of people are protesting immigration, immigrants are protesting anti-immigration laws, and they're talking about closing off our Southern border with a big Anti-illegal Immigration wall.

First, I know that one paragraph doesn't come close to completely describing the situation, it's nuances, whether a problem actually exists, or how it should be fixed if it does. It isn't meant to, I'm just trying to give enough information sot hat the non-Americans here can better understand me when I start to relate it to Shadowrun later.

Second, I have an opinion on the issue. You probably have one on the issue. They may or may not match. My opinion has been mentioned elsewhere, but is entirely irrelevant to this topic. Likewise, your opinion, while valuable to the extent that all opinions are valuable, isn't really relevant to this topic either, unless you can express it in a way that relates it to Shadowrun. In other words, I'm not looking for an immigration debate here, just setting some background information out there.

Now that all that crap is out of the way, would the SINless be akin to an Immigration Problem in 2070?

1) There is suddenly a huge influx of them.
2) They have no employment rights, and so would likely work for less than the government proscribed minimum wage.
3) That could be viewed as taking jobs from actual citizens.

If it is similar enough, what could the governments and people do about it? I doubtt here would be a huge nationwide SINless rally like there recently was for immigrants, because in a distopian future, popping your head too high above water is asking to get it "cropped around the edges."

Jobless unskilled SINned laborers would almost certainly resent losing jobs to SINless "leeches." Likewise if the country in question has human rights laws they could extend those to noncitizens like America does, costing money to feed, educate, and hospitalize SINless people.

What kinds of effects would this have in an SR world? I'm thinking riots where SINless go to get jobs as day laborers. An offshoot of Humanis or some other political group deciding that the only good SINless is a dead SINless. Runners could be hired as muscle or protection by either side. There could even become a bounty on the SINless, doubled if that person is killed while at work.

I never actually considered that, something to think about for my games then.

I only thought of it because my housekeeper didn't show up on the day they had the big Immigrant Rallies.

Pshaw! I wish!

Hmmm ... the SINless aren't exactly in the same position since they did probably grow up in the UCAS (or whatever base country of the setting) but they are not citizens ... so similar enough.


So your housekeeper DID show up on the day they had the big immigrant rally?

Woops. Wrong quote.

I think I had actually mentioned this in another thread.

This would be the new immigrant problem, except in that when it becomes too much of a problem, Lone Star appears on the scene, someone inevitably throws a bottle (or some such silly act of violence, which leaves a smart runner wondering if it was staged or not), Lone Star whips out the tear gas, things break into violence and, of course, the Star slaughters people. Alternatively, they go out and arrest a bunch of people for obstructing business, trespassing, making a nuisance, protesting withotu a permit, etc. Because they're SINless, the news generally doesn't follow what happens six months later at the 'trial'.

SINless doesn't mean dumb, though. So the SINless "problem" is mostly just a problem for the SINless, and it stays fairly quiet. The people with SINs already know about it, don't care, and don't want to hear about it. The people without don't want to get shot or disappeared.

Also, any idea about what other thread that would be?

I'll use construction as an example, as it's one of the places I've seen it happen here in Texas. Let's say you've got a construction job you're working your ass off to finish. During the week you have your well paid legal workers cutting, swing, and nailing their way to a finished builing. all that work generates a good amount of trash, especially if you're remodelling and not just building something new. You could spend your Fridays or a chunk of each afternoon paying those guys to clean up. Or you could spend less money and pay a legal citizen a competitive wage (at least minimum wage) to clean it up on a Saturday. Another option is to pay an illegal immigrant less than minimum wage to clean it up on a Saturday.

The immigrant is performing legal work duties. It's the fact that he's not a citizen and has no work visa that makes it not be a legal job. In the absence of illegal day laborers either currently employed construction workers get longer hours or a longer work cycle, or legal day laborers get jobs paying at elast minimum wage.

We have almost the exact same situation in Texas and California now as countries with a huge post-crash SINless population have in 2070. It's a pretty sizable problem today, and I don't see many reasons why it would be less in 2070.

Yes, we have the same situation here in the Pacific NW. However, to point out the construction job situation - how would the SINless laborer get there? Can't buy a car, can't ride the bus, is the crew boss going to go pick a couple of laborers up at a 'day labor' site? And if the construction is in a neighborhood (subdivision) or within city limits, and SR4 has established that everyone needs to have a comlink broadcasting their SIN at all times (hello, big brother)... well, you better hope no drones or police go cruising by.

Although I think the SINless population is very large, by virtue of the ever-present commlink and SIN checks, they're effectively confined to the slums and dark edges of society.

For this reason, I imagine the 'fake SIN' issue to be much larger - why not hire a shmuck with a fake sin and then pay him 1/4 wages? He's not going to complain, and the employer is still hiring a legal citizen. For the true SINless, this isn't an option, which keeps them tucked away where society can ignore them.

I can just imagine illegal SINless sweatshops all over the Redmond and Puyallup Barrens owned and operated (under a different name of course) by the big corps (and protected by their goons) producing all sorts of consumer goods at a much more competetive price than goods produced by legal workers.

My favored modification of the SR Metaplot revolves around the expansion of the welfare state in the US before the first crash. When coupled with a large illegal immigrant population acting as a drain on the state, laws are passed that A: Require "Proof of citizenship" (SIN, SSN#, ect.), before enjoying any rights/privilages of citizenship. B: Amends the US constitution on the assignment of citizenship. Being born within the confines of the US no longer conveys citizenship, you need to prove that at least one parent is a citizen and that all parents are in the country legally. The fallout from this causes major sinless popultion after the crash, since so many records were destroyed. It also results in a large Ork/Troll SINless population after Goblinization. "I'm sorry Sir, this photo dosen't match you at all!". With the more affluent sectors still in control of the vote, the Gov is not inclined to correct these records becuse of the drain on the Treasury from the expanded welfare rolls, and the loss of tax revenue from Corp ExtraTerritorality.

Hey, the sweatshop idea is great! Very little transportation costs to get the goods to market... you'd have to really protect the place and provide your own electricity, water and infastructure, but think of the run possibilities (exposing a sweat-shop's corporate affiliations, helping a gang hit a place, etc, etc). Excellent idea!

Also, I think SINless would make great laboratory rats... er, test subjects... for a corp that needs to test that new pepper spray or the allergy-potential for that new makeup (Never Tested On Animals... ).