Ah, the race card… I never mentioned race. Don’t add words to my mouth and don’t make assumptions. I know it plays into your storyline that Dems have pushed to demonize anyone who disagrees with their party line but it’s worth noting that the only ones ever mentioning race are the Dems. I’m trying to keep this discussion on track about the US immigration laws.
That being said, there are plenty of Irish being deported for being in that country illegally. They also came for economic reasons. But they get no support to stay from anyone.
And number of people in the caravan?
It doesn’t matter how many people in the caravan. The point still stands. This is about our laws. Don’t like it? Change the law.
I thought the law was people have the right to apply for asylum at a US Port of Entry? Don’t like it? Change the law.
Like many people, I wondered at the desperation. How bad does it have to be for someone to grab their kids and whatever they can carry…and try to walk to the USA. Knowing, as they must, that the reception will be, at best, a callous indifference. If they’re lucky.
For years now, human traffickers and smugglers, known under the generic epithet as coyotes, would extort money under the promise of delivering someone over the border. Their rates are rather simple, every dime you got. You get no guarantee, you’re relying on thugs and criminals. So, everything you got, on the chance that it will save your child’s life.
And if you don’t have any money? The caravan. Even less hope, less chance than picking a thug from a group of thugs and trust them with your life and your child. You have no money for the trip, and if you had, you couldn’t spend it without someone finding out you have some. Desperate hopes, foolish endeavors.
Anyway, boiled down, it is this: the caravan is made up mostly of desperate people hoping for American mercy. (A pity they didn’t have the wisdom and foresight to give birth to an international super-model, like Melania’s parents.) They don’t really have much hope, they are praying that we will give them some. Alas.
Leprosy, smallpox, ISIS? I have no mouth and I must scream.
It’s really, really bad in the region. Several nations in the region are literally falling apart. Venezuela, particularly is a total basket case, with literal starvation going on and already several million people fleeing to neighboring countries, causing a cascade effect since those countries are having issues as well already and don’t need the extra strain. Couple this with just the endemic corruption and the pervasive drug issues with gangs and cartels fighting it out and fighting with the governments and you have a perfect storm of fucked up, so it’s no wonder people are desperate enough to grab their kids and what little they have in the hope that the US will take them in. You see similar things from refugees from Syria/Middle East or North Africa fleeing to Europe. How desperate do you have to be to get into a rickety boat that is unstable even at the best of times, let alone when it’s overloaded to try and sail from North Africa to Europe? Or walk from the Middle East through several Eastern European countries not exactly thrilled to see you to try and get to, say, Germany? 
I didn’t make any assumptions and I didn’t put words in your mouth. I asked you a question. Would you care to answer it? 
What specific political action should the democrats take for a group of migrants currently weeks away from the border that amounts to barely 1/10th of the average total illegal border crossings per month in any given month?
Hmm, weren’t you just complaining about someone putting words in your mouth and making assumptions?
But never mind, I’d appreciate it if you answered my question. **What, exactly, should we do about a group people who constitute a drop in the bucket of our yearly immigration, a thousand miles away, traveling on foot with no resources, claiming to seek asylum in the US? **
I know what we should do. We should turn it into a right wing media fury-storm so that people don’t have to consider the state of the nation or the ineptness of the doofus in the Oval office and instead rally around their fear.
My answer to this is we should be sending aid…medical, food, etc…as well as other assistance. But, really, what we need to be doing at the macro level is helping out the countries having issues (with the exception of Venezuela, who wouldn’t take our help anyway, and who is getting all that great love and assistance from China), as the root cause of the caravan is the situation in the region. We should also push for change in Mexico, as the root cause of illegals coming from them or others in the region is corruption and poverty and lack of opportunity. Stuff we could do more about. And I don’t mean that from a wishy-washy liberal hand outs way (I do actually, but wanted to snuff that) but a hard nosed capitalist way…investment in the region. Something like China’s belt and road but without all the debt trap and evil. Of course, we’d need to clean our own house first…
Aside from abortion, Republican fear issues vary from election to election.
In 2004 and 2006 it was a series of referendums against gay marriage. (The second issue was terrorism.)
In 2008 the Republicans could not avoid the economic crash, the everlasting wars and Bush’s incompetence. If they had been able it would have been terrorism again. They also tried birtherism without much success.
In 2010 it was death panels.
In 2012 it was still disgust with the ACA, but somewhat muted. Oddly, the GOP became the party most afraid of budget deficits. In fact they were the deficit hawks.
In 2014 the GOP campaigned against the Washington deadlock that they had done the most to create.
Don’t be so sensitive, BPC. I was clearly responding to guizot who brought up the race issue.
We should uphold the law. It’s not that hard to understand. However you’re forgetting that this isn’t the only caravan to make it’s way to our border just this year and it’s probably not going to be the last either. The number of people in this caravan is meaningless because it’s a never ending flow of people coming regularly. 
They have made it clear that their intended destination is the US so we had better be prepared for their arrival. And I hope they are prepared to wait because the process can take time. Applying for entry into the US and applying for asylum is daunting. That’s probably why so many choose instead to skip the process altogether and just enter illegally.
You are correct that this isn’t the only caravan this year. What you are missing is that of the few hundred people who actually made the entire trip and reached our border, the vast majority legally made asylum claims.
Your idea that they don’t really want asylum and are going to enter the country illegally is a a fantasy. A twisted dark fantasy.
Wow! That’s a really stupid assertion. A dam leak of 1 molecule of water per year is a very different thing than a leak of 1,000,000 gallons per year; do you disagree?
Well that’s mendacious as hell.
Okay, so what makes this caravan different from basically any other set of immigrants? Why does this group get wall-to-wall media coverage? Why are you demanding that the democrats “do something” when that something you demand, upholding the law, seems like it’s being more than adequately done by the border patrol with or without troops?
Do you understand the issues that we liberals have with this whole discussion?
I think that no matter what came after the word “understand” the reality would be “no”.
You’re aware that border arrests, the best measure of undocumented border crossings, are at a 46 year low?
The first is an accusation of lying. The second is a personal insult. As such, this is a warning for personal insults. These types of responses belong in the Pit.
[/moderating]
Okay.
They haven’t violated any (US) laws; they’re way down in the south of Mexico. You are assuming that they will violate laws before they’ve even arrived. Meanwhile, you are silent about all the Canadians who are violating their visas–people who have in fact violated the law. In one week there are more of them than this “caravan.” This is a repeated pattern of Trump–to hype any immigration issue related to Latin Americans, and call it an “invasion,” and then ignore violations when it’s about people of European origin. The racial subtext of this hypocrisy is clear to anyone who is honest. This isn’t about Democrats. It’s about intellectual honesty vs. propaganda.
They violated Mexico’s laws and any other country they went through to get to Mexico. They are in Mexico illegally. Mexico tried to stop them. They broke down the barricades put in place to halt them and process them by a country they were in illegally, threw rocks at the law enforcement, and refused to be stopped.
Stop implying I’m racist. It’s a low blow, unwarranted and an attempt to derail the conversation. I’m not “silent” about Canadians violating their visas. I am debating an issue - currently: the migrant caravan. It’s the title of this thread. Start a thread for Canadians violating their visas and it’ll be discussed there.
Done – though I accidentally started the thread in Cafe Society. I asked a mod to move it to Elections.
Do you have a cite for any of this? And who are “they”? Did all the migrants do everything you said here? Just some? Did the children do it?
And most importantly, why are you so afraid of a crowd of non-violent people slowly walking north? Yes, it’s happened before, and it resulted in no danger at all to America. Many of them didn’t finish the journey, and those who did generally got in line to apply for asylum. And a tiny handful tried to cross illegally, and were caught.
No one was hurt. No damage was done to America. If you’re afraid, it’s because you’ve been successfully manipulated by politicians. There is nothing to fear from a crowd of slowly-moving peaceful brown people.