Nowadays there’s a whole right-wing meme on Facebook, “But they came here LEGALLY!”, usually as a caption underneath some photo or picture of dirty brown-skinned criminal or Muslim folks, mocking the idea that immigration is good as long as it’s legal, and the general sentiment among MAGA/Trump is that a Somali who comes to the United States legally is just as bad for the nation as one who came here illegally.
But also, when progressives speak up on behalf of illegal immigrants, they often use exactly the same arguments that are used in defense of legal immigrants - namely, that they bring diversity to the nation, they bolster the workforce, they are seeking a better life, etc. They can’t name any benefit of legal immigrants that isn’t also provided by illegal immigrants.
So, to both sides, it seems that legal vs illegal status is really just a piece of paper. The conservatives don’t want brown-skinned folks coming over, regardless of legal status. The liberals don’t see an issue of people coming over illegally as long as they are law-abiding, seeking a better life, hard workers, non-white, etc. To both sides, legal vs. illegal isn’t even really the point - it’s whether they want People Category XYZ in America or not.
Perhaps the only thing that both share in common is that neither side is in favor of bringing in crooks, drug cartelers (noun?), pimps, etc. They want the immigrants to be law-abiding folks.
But conservatives openly defy the law, seeking to punish (and not just deport) that are not of the right color and/or nationality and/or religious persuasion, to the point of trying to deport them to vidictive countries they aren’t even from. One side is unreasonably vindictive, the other side tries to be inclusive, and “both-siderism” just doesn’t apply here.
I’m in favor of comprehensive immigration reform. Lots of immigrants should be legally allowed, but they should have to apply at their local U.S. embassy or consulate first and be admitted after screening, and because there is demand here for their skills, whether farm work or eye surgery.
What if it is impossible to screen them first because there is no U.S. mission and/or their homeland does not have a good system of criminal justice records? This view many not be popular with either left or right, but that’s mostly where asylum should come in.
The most progressive Democrats will dislike the above, but moderate Democrats are publicly for it, and moderate Republicans are privately for it.
Problem is: Militant Republicans have blocked comprehensive immigration reform by scaring away Republicans who privately favor it.
Under these circumstances, most of the immigrants the U.S. economy needs can only come in undocumented.
Another part concerns the undocumented immigrants who have been working here for decades because employers need their services. I see a meaningful distinction depending on how long the undocumented immigrant has been a hard-working contributor to American society.
That’s why Obama lost in a landslide in his second term! It all makes sense.
Seriously, though, you’re starting with strawmen liberals (or progressives?) – my guess would be that most liberals/progressives want expanded legal immigration, but not unrestrained illegal immigration. It’s just wrong that the majority of them don’t see a distinction. This is different from the conservative bigots who would be happy to see brown citizens deported, including Native Americans. Again, though, that’s not a majority conservative position either, although maybe it’s a majority MAGA position, I don’t know.
I think this OP is flawed from the start, obviously flawed, since Obama deported a record number of undocumented immigrants.
Along with this, a lot of the people who object to deportations says things like, “Then who will pick your strawberries?” I always found that sort of talk a bit distasteful, even if factually based.
“Many progressives” is a squishy term. I’d count myself amongst that many, but definitely in a minority amongst democratic voters. It’s also one of the positions that strangely aligns with ideological libertarians, for whatever that’s worth.
IMO, a lot of the “open borders” progressives would change their minds if a huge influx of immigrants moved into their backyards, the same way they’re all for a kinder approach to dealing with the unhoused and addicts until needs start showing up in their playgrounds and taxes need to be increased to pay for treatment.
I think the OP sets up strawmen for both sides. I think the vast majority of Americans want a continuous trickle of immigrants who are thoroughly vetted.
For the MAGA Right, it’s a question of racism. They would feel much the same way as you say Progressives feel, if the immigrants were white. Nobody on that side gets wound up about white Canadians who overstay their visas, after all.
And I think the expectation for the vast majority of progressives is that immigrants do so legally. It’s not like illegal immigration is viewed as a good thing, just that it’s not something that needs to destroy people’s lives or sunder their families or anything like that.
Some MAGA, sure, but a lot of even MAGA republicans are OK with brown engineers and doctors and whatnot. They don’t want criminals coming here (a fairly universal sentiment, despite MAGA’s persistent claims that Democrats want Mexican gangsters to come here because they vote D), but they also don’t want poor people coming here, even if they’re white.
I’m not discounting that racism exists, and that racists find more comfort and belonging on the right. But I think “let’s keep the criminals and poor out and allow, say, 250,000 wealthy and or professionally educated immigrants annually” would be supported by about 90% of the country. The difference is most Republicans would vote loudly for this policy and most Democrats would vote secretly for it.
I see “open border” as an admission that nobody has any more good ideas, so why not? It’s better than brutalizing people.
There were some good ideas, including by GW Bush, but the right wing wouldn’t have it. Obama actually deported a lot of people, but that wasn’t enough, though one wonders if it might have been if he wasn’t a black Democrat.
At this point conservatives have blocked all reasonable measures. Their idea of good regulation was to require people to apply in person, having first closed all but one or two of the points at which do so. Which is to say, they have no interest in allowing people to immigrate legally, at least from Mexico. These are also the people who claim to be all about protecting children, but that’s instantly exposed as a lie when we see what ICE is doing. So why not throw up our hands and say “Fine, open borders then, since nothing else will satisfy you?”
If I take the open borders idea seriously I do actually find something in its favor: Every time I look into it, I find that immigrants (legal and illegal) are, as a group, more law abiding than citizens. So I say let them come - apparently they’re better people than we are.
I’m still not seeing what benefit is provided by legal immigrants that is not also provided by law-abiding illegal immigrants as well. The illegal immigrants also bring in diversity, bolster the workforce, etc.
How do you know that illegal immigrants will be law-abiding?? If you have some kind of screening process, you can get the mix of labor you’re looking for and at least try not to let in the obvious bad folks.
If you just open the borders (and, there are good arguments for that, but whatever), you have no idea that you’ll get people with the skills you’re looking for, and no idea if they aren’t all ex-cons, drug dealers, etc.
It’s just another way of saying they want a slave labor class so they can maintain their quality of life. The same applies for the West’s relationship with the Global South as a whole and the wealthy elite’s relationship with the 99%.
It depends a lot on context - is it “No one here legally will work that cheap, so we’d better keep exploiting the illegals” or is it “Sure, I’m all for stopping illegal immigration. I don’t mind $5 for a head of lettuce” ( because I really don’t)
I don’t think most Democrats believe in open borders. There is no benefit provided by illegals immigrants that isn’t also provided by legal immigrants ( with the exception of being vulnerable to various sorts of exploitation - and some people do consider that a benefit. ) I am 100% fine with stopping most people at the border. I’m not so fine with turning people who had various types of legal status into people with no legal status by revoking things like TPS or deporting people who have been here since childhood or shutting down refugee admissions for anyone other than white South Africans. I have a problem with deporting people found in teh Home Depot parking lot when lot of undocumented criminals are left alone, because ICE is more interested in meeting arrest and deportation quotas than in getting rid of criminals. My issue isn’t that I don’t want people to do things the “right way” - it’s that I want the government to do things the right way. And I’m pretty sure a lot of Democrats think the same way I do.
Not really, the needed numbers are far too large for a realistic “screening process”. There’s also the issues that “bad folks” are seldom obvious, and that the people doing the screening would largely be bigots.
We’ve been unable to set up a properly functional immigration system precisely because the bigots are too numerous and powerful to let it happen. Any such “screening” would be just as broken because so many of the people running it would be invested in making sure it was broken.