I want better security but a wall seems pretty much useless.
The wall has nothing to do with border security or immigration, and is meant purely as a monument to racial hatred and to Trump’s ego.
Few people who talk about “illegal immigration” or “border security” really care about immigration, they care about persecuting brown people whether they are immigrants or not.
The current situation seems fine to me. Illegal immigration isn’t nearly the problem some make it out to be for political purposes. Going hard after employers would be a MUCH better use of resources.
Besides, a physical barrier from Brownsville to San Diego would do a piss poor job of stopping one specific form of illegal entry. There’s dozens of others.
The “need” for the Trumpwall is nearly non-existent. Illegal immigration had been dropping for years by the time Trump ran for office, and more than a million of those already here had gone back home. That’s according to the Pew Research Center. There’s no record of even one terrorist getting into the US over the Mexican border. The FBI says so. The DEA says nearly all of the drugs smuggled over the border get here through the official border crossings, concealed in legitimate goods. The claim that immigrants are criminals is phony, too. Statistically, they’re less likely to commit crimes than natural-born Americans.
I chose “I believe we should have less border security or open borders,” over “While the wall may or may not be effective, it is not a good look; e.g. Berlin Wall, Great Wall, symbolizes separation.” But I can sign on to both.
The wall is not conservative in itself, in that we haven’t historically had one. It’s federal overreach. It’s an attack on border communities. It’s government waste.
It’s contrary to the principles I was taught as a young Reagan Republican, and it doesn’t seem like my fellow progressives today are in favor of it either. Who’s the base for this nonsense?
Nah, too Pitty.
I think our border security is fine, and that the ‘problem’ has been diminishing for years now, and that to really solve it what we need to do is something like China’s belt and road program, but less evil. Basically, the US should invest (both privately and the government) in manufacturing centers and stable governments in the region, moving our manufacturing centers from Asia to regions closer to home. What has worked in other places will work in our backyard, and folks who have good jobs and stable government won’t need or want to come here illegally…they will come here like everyone else does. In addition and in the short to medium term I’d basically open up the Visa system to basically make the current illegals into legal temporary or migrant workers who come here, legally, work legally (and pay taxes legally) and go home legally, protected by the system instead of exploited by companies who employ them illegally, with the companies not having to worry about being fined for using illegal labor. Everything above board and legal. It would probably (ok, for sure) cost us more in locally grown produce and construction, but it would be worth every penny, and the other stuff would potentially pay big dividends down the road.
In any case, this is already starting to happen organically in Mexico…less illegal Mexicans are coming to the US each year, and part of that is because even though they don’t have a really stable government and they have a ton of corruption, the benefits of NAFTA have moved jobs and better potential prosperity into Mexico…and as that grows fewer and fewer Mexicans will want to come here illegally.
No to open borders, but yes to less border security.
Specifically, when our border guards are shooting holes in or emptying out water jugs left in the desert, that’s more border security than I want. When we close legal points of entry to asylum-seekers, forcing them to cross illegally, that’s also more border security than I want. And when we separate asylum seekers from their children, and lock them up in separated iceboxes, that’s WAY more border security than I want.
The US-Mexico border is nearly 2,000 miles long. Does anyone who is sane really think that a) an effective wall could be built along the entirety of that distance or b) that $5B dollars would enable construction of more than a token amount of that wall, or c) that policing of that entire thing could ever be any more effective than it is now? This is a stupid grandstanding boondoggle for government contractors to salivate over, and will accomplish little to nothing to slow immigration and drug trafficking.
The people who don’t want any more “welfare queens”:
Add a dash of Southern Strategy and, well, you get a sublimely clear idea of precisely which government spending is to be considered waste and, therefore, must be cut, and which spending is in our national interest after all.
Why don’t we fix the problems internally?
More than 2/3 of the new illegal immigrants overstayed their legal visas. A wall (or any other physical security measure) won’t stop them.
The fundamental problem is it is practical and common to receive employment in the USA without having a valid citizenship or work permit. If most of the 10 million current illegals didn’t have jobs, and there was no realistic prospect of people South of the border coming into America and being paid to work, there wouldn’t even need to be a wall at all. There could just be a few signs indicating the position of the border every few hundred yards and maybe a call box so you can contact ICE and ask for *legal *asylum.
It’s not even that fucking hard a problem to solve. It was solvable for at least the last 30 years. It’s pretty damn simple.
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All employers, employing an individual for work of any duration over a few days, must follow a procedure to submit the employee’s information to the government.
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The crime is not hiring a possible illegal, the crime is not submitting the information.
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It is guaranteed Federal prison is the government proves beyond a reasonable doubt that you deliberately failed to send in the info. It doesn’t have to be a long incarceration - maybe a month in minimum security for the first offense - but the punishment needs to be unavoidable so that large corporate hiring managers won’t dare take the risk.
What would the procedure be? Simple as pie. 30 years ago, you would need to take a photo of the employee, using Polaroid as that was the instant method at the time. (today, an app that can be installed on the phone would be how). You also photo the person’s ID card, which must map to a social security number internally. (state IDs that don’t map 1:1 to SSNs aren’t valid, so you have to photo their passport or social security card + driver’s license). You fill out a 1 page form stating the dates, place, and rough hours per day you intend to employ this person.
Why does this catch basically all the illegals? Can’t someone just get fake documents? It’s simple. SSNs are the one identifier that is guaranteed to be 1:1, that is, no 2 valid citizens or H1B/green card holders have the same SSN, and no valid resident lacks an SSN. So there are no collisions. So you just autonomously use the submitted data (it would be on a paper form 30 years ago and OCR would be used to put the info into a computer, today it would just be a form in an app on a phone or webpage on a desktop computer) and you look for the following oddities in a computer program:
a. Invalid SSN or Invalid state ID that doesn’t map to an SSN
b. Two or more individuals using the same SSN with different names
c. Two or more requests for the same name, same SSN, but overlapping hours of work or different cities geographically separated by a certain distance over the same dates
d. Two or more requests where the faces of the worker do not match (only feasible in the last 10 years)
Any of these collisions (and more) get flagged and an ICE detective is tasked to investigate the case. The overwhelming majority of illegal workers would be caught this way, and it doesn’t have to be 100%, 90% would still be overwhelmingly effective.
Oh, and if this isn’t enough, put a USD bounty on reporting to ICE the hiring managers who have committed this crime. Think your lawncare workers are not legal? Report them to ICE, and if your hunch is right, it’s a $10,000 reward.
Anyways, the way I see it, the government could have done this for 30 years. It purposefully failed to do so. So I think a system like this needs to be implemented, and amnesty needs to be offered for the people who have been in the USA long enough and have met certain conditions, because by failing to make even a basic effort to kick them out, the government has de facto encouraged them to stay.
I voted #5, but #3 and #4 have some truth to them too. In particular, I’m surprised more Republican Wall-supporters don’t remember “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
I’m for more border security. Border patrol has had to do too much with too little. Putting up more of a barrier in certain sections of the border probably makes sense but not for the entire length. That’s just a waste of time and money.
#3 was the closest choice.
Yes, I am aware of what Democrats say about Reagan. But as I remember it, Reagan-era Republican rhetoric wasn’t as big on closed borders as things have gotten since. Did Pat Buchanan really win the election in 1992? I thought it was that hillbilly guy, Clinton or something.
I have a wall around my Property to keep folks out; not, to keep me in. I live in Arizona and our schools are suffering from all the kids that the illegals brought with them. They do not pay in taxes what they use in services.
Hey, Pal, I’ve never disambiguated anybody.
Oh yeah, I’ll bet they’re suffering. They “suffer” because they are told to is more like it.
If we stipulate that a wall is an effective and important deterrent to immigration, then let us also stipulate that ICE can get the hell out of the 100 mile area around airports and seaports. If the wall does the trick, then don’t tell me we need federal stormtroopers pacing around my city hassling people who speak foreign languages.
Nonsense, they pay billions more in taxes than they do in services.
This sort of rhetoric is just classic victim blaming. We exploit undocumented immigrants and use them as an excuse for our hatred of brown people, then demonize them so we can feel self righteous about it. We call them by a dehumanizing term like “illegals” so we can treat them as subhuman and gloat about it.