Like Russia? Given that they’re basically hemorrhaging educated citizens as it is…
Remind me, did the 9-11 hijackers sneak in, or did they have some level of vetting already via the visa process? And did any of them overstay their visa?
“some level of vetting” (like the female San Bernardino terrorist). Again, I think we’re in agreement that the vetting we do of visitors / immigrants is insufficient.
I don’t think its insufficient. You can’t catch everyone. It’s so sufficient that a poor person from a 3rd world country has virtually no chance of ever visiting this country on a legally obtained visitor visa.
I just think it’s telling that people who are so fanatical about illegal immigrants being in the country only seem to focus on poor brown people sneaking in from the south and never mention the hundreds of thousands of visa overstays every year. Or are beside themselves on what a BIG problem the already here illegal immigrants are, when failing to articulate what the problem actually is, instead of just “They are here!”
I’m not playing a gotcha game here. I’m just trying to understand the positions. If you think that anyone who walks into the country should not be detained, then why are we talking about visa overstayers? Shouldn’t they be under the same no detention policy?
Surely you aren’t suggesting that we detain and deport people who overstay their visas while allowing anyone without a visa to begin with to just come in?
And yet, more thorough than what gun buyers are subjected to.
Tell you what. What was the detainment process in, say, 2013? I don’t remember hearing a mass outcry of inhumane conditions suffered by children separated from their parents. How were people seeking asylum detained in 2013?
It’s a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, and probably off-topic for this thread. I’m not familiar with the details of the level of effort involved in vetting the various types of visa applicants. Laws for buying guns vary from state to state (as well as some umbrella federal laws), but the constitutional right of the people to keep and bear arms and the lack of a comparable constitutional right to immigrate almost certainly factor into the equation as well.
2015, but still applicable.
My solution? My solution is to keep on as it was when Trump took office and he seemed ok with for over a year.
I am not seeing the dire problem Trump describes that all of a sudden happened.
We have always had illegal immigrants. It seems they topped off around 2007 at 12 million in the US (and that was built up over many, many years). Then it dipped a bit under Obama (I have not seen statistics for after 2014).
Homicides are down overall in the US so they are not bringing crime.
Trump is crowing about3.9 percent unemployment being the lowest ever so illegal immigrants are not taking your job.
Their cost to you as a taxpayer is a much debated topic but if we take a middle ground it would seem about neutral (illegal immigrants pay taxes but do not collect on many welfare programs…biggest cost to you is their kids accessing the school system).
Illegal immigrants also do jobs many Americans won’t. Go ask a farmer if he can harvest his crops without migrant farm workers (many of which are illegal immigrants). They openly scoff at the notion of American teenagers coming in to do the same work (and these were diehard Trump types of people…no tree huggers in site).
On balance I am not seeing a huge problem. I would like congress to get a reasonable immigration bill through but that has been impossible for years and looks to remain so.
So I am not sure what Trump’s policies do for us. Certainly it is costing us a lot more money than the previous way of doing things (holding people in detention is expensive). I am not convinced his policies do much to stem illegal immigrants either. I guess we will have to see.
So again, what problem is Trump solving and is it better than how it was?
He’s “solving” the “problem” of brown-skinned people upsetting his supporters’ delicate memories of how things used to be. Never mind all that logical stuff you discuss about crime and social cost, they can remember a time when you didn’t have to press 1 for English and godammit everything was wonderful back then.
If there was no problem before, then why do you support detaining these people?
I’m really not sure what you are asking.
And to be clear I am not saying our immigration policy was perfect under Obama. It wasn’t but it seems to be an intractable problem for our politicians.
And I support detaining people in certain circumstances. Like if they are a felon.
I do not support criminally prosecuting every illegal immigrant they catch and I absolutely oppose separating children from their parents without a compelling reason. Walking across the border is not a compelling reason.
Could you quote some of the posts where you think you’re hearing this? I’ll be damned if I can figure out whether you’re hearing this because someone said it, or because it’s what you want to think we’re saying.
Yeah, if I see a guy on the street carrying a gun, and he’s not a LEO*, I’m going to be very, very afraid.
If I see a Latinx illegal immigrant, I won’t even notice, in all likelihood.
*On account of my being white. If I were black, I’d be a bit nervous either way.
Eh, economic growth correlates with population growth. Piketty argued that it accounted for up to 50% of annualized GDP growth from 1750-2012. However, being economics, you can find estimates all over the map… other than two things:
- nobody claims that pop growth is 100% of the factor of economic growth, and
- no one thinks that population growth brings about economic decline in developed countries.
Trump wants GDP growth of 4%. The BEA estimates 2018 GDP growth to be 2.2%.
Tax cuts won’t get the missing 1.8%. Not even close. “Innovation” won’t get it either. Wage growth (LOL) won’t do it, especially in an aging population.
In addition, in over 26 states, more white people are dying than being born. The US census says this will move up the date where white people are a minority by up to 2 years, from 2040 to 2038.
The question here isn’t immigration. It isn’t really illegal immigration. It is: How do you keep the economy growing when natural population growth slacks off to 1% or less? Or, more saliently:
Do you want a white country? Or one that is economically robust? You can no longer have both.
Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador have neither.
That response is beneath you and this board.
Your point appears to be that we can’t possibly build an “economically robust” country without non-white immigrants. I’m not convinced that importing a bunch of people who were unable to build an economically robust country in their native land is the recipe for success that you seem to believe it to be. Your thoughts?
You didn’t ask for MY thoughts, but I’d like yours. Do you really think robust economies are built by the workers and lower class? I’m not asking if you think they work hard or contribute to the economy of their countries of origin; I’m asking if you think they build them. If so, then I guess shame on all of us workers and retired workers in the US; it must be entirely our own fault–not Wall Street’s, not the president’s, not congress’s or the federal reserve, but ours. And 10 years ago, when we were unable to build a robust economy here in the US, that was on us?