Illegal Immigration

HARK! said:

I agree that this administration needs to stop playing footsie, and step up their game.

The American voters have spoken.

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Yes, 49.8% of them have spoken.
Quite the “mandate”.

HARK! said:

They broke in illegally.

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Not if they're refugees or have valid claims of asylum.

But if Trump's ICE raids TREAT them as all illegals bore their claims are duly processed - that's illegal according to conventions the USA itself ratified.

Pommer said:

Yes, 49.8% of them have spoken.
Quite the “mandate”.

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And it's worse if one actually looks at the entire cohort of potential voters.

1/3 don't vote, 1/3 voted for Kamala, and just a tiny fraction over 1/3 voted for Trump/ism.

Quite the "mandate" indeed!

HARK! said:

Those people were put to the back of line while unvetted criminals, the insane, and terrorists, were moved to the front of the line, by breaking in illegally, and lying to officials.

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Sounds like someone's drunk the Trump cool aid without reviewing the statistics.
As I keep pointing out, the data shows that these people are:-

* VASTLY more likely to be MORE law abiding than the average native-born American citizen!


* MORE willing to do the jobs no one else will - and end up contributing vastly MORE economic value than they might take in any welfare assistance programs!
Illegal immigration to the United States - Wikipedia

ECONOMIC UNITS
What happened to the neoliberal (and rather reductionist in my 'radical left' opinion) of people as 'economic units'? What happened to the Republican ideal of NOT having the government fuss too much about people because they would always do what was 'economically rational'? Was not the Republican ideal to have smaller government because people generally didn't need that much governing? Didn't Reagan famously say that “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

MCARTHY's APPRENTICE
So what does Trump do? Creates a BIG government ICE program. It’s ramped up to 15 TIMES the annual spending on ICE (the average across the last 15 years.) He’s spending all this money to do what, exactly? To terrorise neighbourhoods, create mayhem, and rope in the national guard. It’s out of an authoritarian playbook - conditioning citizens to being familiar with the military in their streets. It's straight out of the McCarthy era - which of course is where Trump learned it all. McCarthy's apprentice Roy Cohn mentored Trump back in the day. That's how Trump knows the authoritarian playbook - the victimising of the 'other' - the repetitive fearmongering - the harnessing of rage and hatred as political tools. So the immigrants are "poisoning the blood" (whatever THAT means!) 'They're eating the dogs!' (Hello 1970's racist trope!)

THE RIVER OF GOLD
Trump is wasting all this money to achieve what? To reject a river of gold pouring into America. Send it back! Make no mistake - this is costing tens of billions more than it used to - and it will LOWER the American GDP as all this great, law abiding labour gets sent home.

WE'RE ALL IMMIGRANTS
Let's face it. America is just like Australia. Unless you can trace your family line back ten thousand years - we're ALL immigrants! So what's the problem?

eclipsenow said:

But these studies are more specific.

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Those studies are flawed. They only deal with illegals that have been caught and proven to be illegal. Texas doesn't know they are illegal when caught. There is controversy surrounding the study and this is only in one state. A controversial study in one state. Not reliable.

eclipsenow said:

Evidence? You're good at the big bold assertions thing - but not so much with supplying evidence.

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The fact is the vast majority are NOT granted asylum. They don't meet the criteria.

eclipsenow said:

Third - ever read the Old Testament? About how to treat 'aliens' in the land? Gleaning laws? Concerns for poverty? The general ethic of love your neighbour - and who does the neighbour turn out to be in the Good Samaritan story?

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Remember, we don't have a national religion. If we are goingvto say that we need to follow the OT then should we follow the OT on all things or just the things you want? If we are going to require the givernment to follow scripture regarding the good Samaritan parable, then we should require the government to follow all the moral teachings in the NT correct, like outlawing lying, and all sexual sin, including adultery correct? Or do we just have the givernment follow the moral teachings you want and ignore the rest?

We have laws on the books and we should follow them.

eclipsenow said:

First - children born in the USA are citizens.

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Yes they are, but the parents aren't.

eclipsenow said:

if you will please extend to me the same courtesy.

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Fair enough. But that is what they are doing. Trying to manipulate your emotions. Maybe they haven't succeeded

eclipsenow said:

I'm motivated to ignore your assertions when you have not really contributed any data.

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Yeah I dont do that anymore. I look the stuff up and just say what I've found. I have yet to find anyone who just either disregarded my links or just refused to believe them. So there isnt any point.

I've also discovered that far too many so called studies are too unreliable to be depended on as accurate. The methodology is too flawed, there too few and many have not had systematic reviews done.

eclipsenow said:

Just letting you know - as your magic hand waving

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They aren't magic hand waving. See above.

eclipsenow said:

VASTLY more likely to be MORE law abiding than the average native-born American citizen!

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Even if it were true, they still broke the law and need to be sent away. Because everyone if them is a criminal.

eclipsenow said:

“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

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In many ways it is. Protecting our borders isnt one of them. In fact it is a very critical part of having a country to begin with.

eclipsenow said:

He’s spending all this money to do what, exactly?

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Remove illegals, including violent ones, drug dealers, traffickers and gang members, cartels etc. And all other illegals in the process.

eclipsenow said:

That's how Trump knows the authoritarian playbook - the victimising of the 'other' - the repetitive fearmongering - the harnessing of rage and hatred as political tools. So the immigrants are "poisoning the blood" (whatever THAT means!) 'They're eating the dogs!' (Hello 1970's racist trope!)

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Its not authoritarian to enforce the laws of the land. So he and others have said silly things. We don't care. We just want laws enforced. Its no more authoritarian than enforcing traffic laws is.

eclipsenow said:

America is just like Australia. Unless you can trace your family line back ten thousand years - we're ALL immigrants! So what's the problem?

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The problem is the border is critical to a nation. Without one we have no nation. Immigration law is meant to protect the border and the citizens within. Its there to make sure that the people coming are who we want to come. We demand tgat people follow the laws, otherwise we have no law. And your country definitely has one too. As far as I know you havent had millions of people break into your country.

Pommer said:

Dismissing evidence (studies) with an assertion “Your studies are fake”, should ought to be backed up with more than the assertion itself.

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LOL, you will dismiss it. You are making these claims because you have dismissed it.

HARK! said:

In the workforce​

Illegal immigrants within the workforce are extremely vulnerable due to their status. Being illegal makes these individuals susceptible to exploitation by employers as they are more willing to work through bad conditions and low income jobs—consequently making themselves vulnerable to abuse.[119] Most illegal migrants end up being hired by US employers who exploit the low-wage market produced through immigration.

Your source

Do you support this?

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Of course not. Only conservatives support such things. That's why ICE is avoiding those situations except for specially staged show raids.

rjs330 said:

Those studies are flawed. They only deal with illegals that have been caught and proven to be illegal. Texas doesn't know they are illegal when caught. There is controversy surrounding the study and this is only in one state. A controversial study in one state. Not reliable.

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But out of the violent crime that is recorded, the statistics represented show how much lower undocumented immigrants are than documented, let alone American born citizens.

If - as you suggest, there are far more undocumented immigrants in the State / country than have appeared before law enforcement as a result of crime - then that means as a percentage of the whole there is even LESS crime amongst undocumented immigrants than the study shows!

It's just how mathematics works.

(When you do magic hand waving, try to remember which hand holds the secret or you'll give the trick away.)

rjs330 said:

The fact is the vast majority are NOT granted asylum. They don't meet the criteria.

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Remember my request for evidence?

rjs330 said:

Remember, we don't have a national religion. If we are goingvto say that we need to follow the OT then should we follow the OT on all things or just the things you want?

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I'm talking about how you feel, and how you write.
What would you want the country to do?
Why do you vote the way you do?
Also - we're Christians - so of course we see the OT through the gospel lens of the NT in how the OT concepts of prophet, priest, and king are all transformed through Jesus - and with them our relationship between God's people (the church) and the relevant authorities of the day (the state).

But I still maintain that justifying Trump's dog-whistling to Proud Boys and their friends is difficult for a Christian - because while we are not under the theocratic rule of the OT - we are under its moral obligations.

Love your neighbour.
Who is my neighbour?
That group outside your borders that you do not like - but who seem to care for each other.

To the Jews that was the Samaritans (with their 'poisoned blood' from generations of marrying Assyrians). To Americans it could very well be the kind hearted immigrant family who DID in fact just flee their country because of the drug gangs extortion demands now moving to stealing their teenage daughters.

rjs330 said:

We have laws on the books and we should follow them.

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Yes you should! Both conscience and law require that you apply the international convention of human rights and well being of refugees diligently and carefully.

rjs330 said:

Yeah I dont do that anymore. I look the stuff up and just say what I've found. I have yet to find anyone who just either disregarded my links or just refused to believe them. So there isnt any point.

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Maybe for hardened people who are just not open to data. But your critiques of the Texas study I referenced - let alone the other 3 - have been laughable. You've unwittingly suggested that the undocumented immigrant is even MORE law abiding and careful than the studies show!

So - in other words - you sound exactly like the people you are critiquing who refuse to listen to data. They have their 'truth' in a very postmodern sense - and don't want any unnecessary 'inconvenient truths' mucking up their tidy little universe!

I - on the other hand - respect data.
I know internet debates can change minds.
Why? Because my own has been changed on many things.
I have had to shift the whole tone of my blog repeatedly!

EG: I'm a climate activist. My writing 21 years ago was anti-nuclear. Then for about 15 years I became pro-nuclear - because I was convinced by the studies back then that there was no WAY we could afford to Overbuild renewables enough to compensate for the intermittency - they were just too expensive to build multiples of our grid capacity! But now they are so cheap - and solar is still likely to halve again by 2030 - we CAN Overbuild wind and solar, and still have spare change for all the pumped hydro dams we could want to back it up. (These can be off-river, only pumping in a little water every few months to compensate for evaporation.)

I had to eat humble pie when I finally admitted that the costings were in, and renewables could do the job. That was only about 2.5 years ago.

I had to rewrite huge chunks of my blog in my spare time!

Those who respect reality LET their minds be changed by data!

rjs330 said:

I've also discovered that far too many so called studies are too unreliable to be depended on as accurate.... They aren't magic hand waving. See above.

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The above was a fantastic illustration of magic-hand waving going wrong and giving up the trick.

HARK! said:

Does this mean that you are OK with unvetted insane, criminal, terrorists freely crossing our borders?

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Of course not.
And given the sheer numbers - there will be a few!

But here's the thing. Are you OK with Trump lying about the overwhelming VAST majority? With increasing racial tensions and racial profiling? With masked men grabbing ethnic-looking people off the streets and taking them who-knows-where without due process? Without even having time to consider where their teenage daughter was going - how she was going to get home - when they snatched the mum? With increasing the ICE budget 15 fold when it would be far more economically prudent to maybe just double the processing and get it right?

Trump's NPD means he LOVES drama! Adore him, or hate him, he loves both! All those people who are utterly furious with him are confirming that he is the most important person in the room - because all their attention is focused on him. (But mock him on late night TV? That he cannot tolerate! That threatens his whole narcissistic worldview - and is why so often demagogues who want to be the absolute authority in the land have comedians and intellectuals jailed or executed.)

As the Wiki on Democratic Backsliding says:

• Free and fair elections are degraded;[20]
• Liberal rights of freedom of speech, press[22] and association decline, impairing the ability of the political opposition to challenge the government, hold it to account, and propose alternatives to the current regime;[20][22]
• The rule of law (i.e., judicial and bureaucratic restraints on the government) is weakened,[20] such as when the independence of the judiciary is threatened, or when civil service tenure protections are weakened or eliminated.[23]
• An over-emphasis on national security as response to acts of terrorism or perceived antagonists.[23]
• Democratic backsliding - Wikipedia

This whole emphasis on 'othering' - on blaming ALL the ills of society on 'those people' who are 'not even human - I call them animals' - is straight out of a sociology 101 textbook.

THE BLAME GAME / SPLITTING / OTHERING: Finding a group to blame for all society’s ills. Immigrants took your jobs, radical socialist left assassinates everyone (when the statistics show the right does this 5 times more!) “They’re eating the dogs”, etc.

PROPOGANDA LORDS: Try to control information. Banning comedians, intellectuals from discussing certain things, attacks on universities, attacking the free press. Sound familiar?

https://knowledge.insead.edu/leadership-organisations/fighting-against-dictatorship

HARK! said:

I'm not drinking that Kool-aid.

Biden's policies supported such things; and many Biden supporters supported his policies.

Can you prove that; or is this some new Left wing conspiracy theory?

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It's not a conspiracy if it's done openly.

HARK! said:

The vast majority of these criminals who claim that they are seeking asylum do not have valid claims.

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Evidence? Oh - and as we have shown - they might be undocumented - but they're not as criminal as American born citizens with half the violent crime, a quarter of the theft, etc. It might be fun to get all judgie and repeat 'criminals' because they fled some horrible poverty - but remember God's heart for the poor? How do you think God sees these people? They might have broken national boundary laws - but if you want to rate them by biblical standards of law - go ahead and check out how God asked Israel to treat the alien?

HARK! said:

The criminals who cross the border illegally

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Using tautologies to hammer your point?

HARK! said:

cut to the front of the line,

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In some countries the American embassy is watched by people who will do bad things to refugees trying to flee by proper means. By all means push the tired old meme of an orderly queue - but next time you have YOUR teenage daughter kidnapped by drug-gangs you couldn't pay your 'protection money' to - and she's sold into the sex trade - get back to us on the necessity of proper paper work!

HARK! said:

thereby prolonging the wait of those who are seeking asylum legitimately, and have been waiting for years.

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I hear you. So once again you have proved my point for me.
Wouldn't it be great if instead of multiplying the hostile kidnapping arm of ICE by 15 fold - Trump had maybe just DOUBLED the calm, orderly processing of undocumented migrants?

You know - even psychologically assess them - get back ground checks, and let in some of this river of gold legitimately to resolve the issues you've mentioned above.

Find the criminal and insane!
Process the law abiding and respectful!
Prevent those bosses operating indentured servitude like business models with the undocumented!

Trump would have had FAR more success just doubling the calm processing arm of immigration, than driving these people even further underground in a reign of terror that he's also using as a photo-op every time he calls in the National Guard!

("Look at how tough I am! I call in the National Guard on false pretences!")

HARK! said:

Do you support these criminals who make it more difficult for those who have valid claims, and those who are doing everything right?

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Do you support raising the racial tensions in America, masked men pulling families apart, the extremely controversial and expensive harnessing of the National Guard for pointless political theatre, and raising the ICE budget 15 fold rather than just doubling the processing of the undocumented hardworking MAJORITY?

There's one thing behind all this - a fear from WASPs that they will not be the majority any more in America.
That's it.

And Trump sure knows how to blow that dog-whistle! "Proud boys stand back and stand by!"