The evidence posted so far is that, no. You are in a minority close to 1. Posters here don’t agree that immigrants are invaders. Russians in Ukraine are. Learn de difference.
It is no wonder that, like in climate change, you would think you are correct about a scientific point about falsification. But, it was only the deniers who did agree on how dumb you did use the concept. So it is when you use a definition like invader against immigrants. There are fewer bigots here than you foolishly assume.
And so, you make the baby Karl Popper cry. Not even just because you assisted climate change deniers, but because you assist bigotry now.
By “invaders,” are you saying “people who come here with the intention of killing me and my neighbors”? If so, my answer has nothing to do with people who aren’t planning lethal force; if not, my answer about invaders has nothing to do with yours. In any case, children aren’t included, and you’re a fucking monster worse than a pedophile for including them in your murderous ideology.
“Planning lethal force” isn’t, as far as I know, a requirement written into the definition of “invader”. But my point is this: even so long as you are limiting yourself to talking about ‘people who come here with the intention of killing your and your neighbors’, I take that as the starting point: how are we to deal with them?
And I figure we’d shoot them, or capture them at gunpoint, or whatever, as they try to invade at the border With The Intention Of Killing You And Your Neighbors — and, in hopes of limiting that to them, we’d tell people who aren’t them to enter the country by getting permission at a port of entry or some such. You know, so as not to get mistaken for an invader who (a) would be coming here with the intention of killing you and your neighbors, and who therefore (b) wouldn’t seek permission at a port of entry.
If someone who doesn’t have the intention of killing you and your neighbors decides to show up at a port of entry and ask permission, that’s terrific. And if someone like that decides to skip the part about getting permission, figuring they’ll instead just cross where an Invader With The Intention Of Killing would, then let them know what to expect in the way of treatment at gunpoint.
Again, I find it highly implausible that you don’t actually realize how stupid it sounds to suggest that US border officials can’t tell the difference between non-hostile illegal border crossers and a literal invading enemy force unless the former are conscientiously queuing up at designated entry point.
I mean, maybe you really are just that stupid, but so far Ockham’s razor still seems to favor “troll”.
I say: tell people to go to Point A if they’re a literal invading force and are willing to get shot, and to Point B if they’re not, and then let them choose.
Non hostile illegal border crossers aren’t always ideal candidates for citizenship, but who can tell between them and candidates we’d like to let in at the border?
The border is a mess. It always will be. Unless there are workable immigration reforms.
A line of “reasoning” that applies just as well to jaywalkers, for example.
Since we can’t tell the difference between harmless pedestrians and escaping criminals, we’ll just mount anti-jaywalking snipers at strategic locations, right? And we’ll tell all passersby not to bother crossing streets at the stoplight if they’re literal escaping criminals and are willing to get shot, but to cross at the light if they’re not, and then let them choose.
Which makes exactly as much sense as your immigrant-massacre fantasies.
Nobody’s disagreeing that it’s reasonable to legally require immigrants to get official authorization for crossing the border, and to make them legally subject to apprehension and possible deportation if they don’t comply with that requirement.
Any more than anybody’s disagreeing that it’s reasonable to legally require pedestrians to cross streets at designated crossing points.
What we and all other sane people are disagreeing with you about is simply whether it’s a good idea to extrajudicially execute people merely for not complying with that requirement. Of course it’s not a good idea, and nobody who isn’t a psychopath and/or troll would dream of advocating it.
No, it doesn’t; such criminals could simply not jaywalk, at which point they wouldn’t really get on anyone’s radar and could just sort of get to this or that location without drawing extra attention to themselves; when I’m not jaywalking, I’m inviting no special attention to myself.
The whole idea behind — as you put it — “conscientiously queuing up at designated entry point” would be to say, uh, hey, this is me asking you to check me out: I’ll be answering the questions you put to me while you ascertain whether I have permission to be in the United States; I am going out of my way to put myself on your radar, by placing myself under your authority: drawing attention to myself, in hopes of you giving me an okay.
Refraining from jaywalking doesn’t give us a special Look-At-Me chance to evaluate one’s situation, and so those criminals can easily do that. Presenting oneself at a port of entry does, and so criminals would presumably want to avoid that.
I think one of the things you are failing to understand is that other people aren’t middle class.
When I decided to move to Canada, I planned it several months ahead of time. I acquired documents; I filed paperwork; I booked a hotel across the border for the first week. I did this because I had a job and there was (to my knowledge) nobody out there actively intending to rape or murder me or my (nonexistent) children. I wasn’t worried about to feed those children and keep them alive.
For many south of the US-Mexico border, the danger of death, by violence, communicable disease, or the hazards that come with extreme poverty, is very real. They don’t have months to wait while bureaucrats examine their paperwork. It’s not like when Americans vacation, where you queue a couple of hours at most for customs. It takes a very long time to go through that process, and they might be killed in the meantime. Why else would people risk the dangers of crossing illegally?
Now, we are a rich country. We could easily hire more people to process claims and paperwork much more quickly than we do. We could make it so that showing up at a legal border crossing got an answer of “yes” or “no” in a day at most. If that were the case, you might have a point. But it is not the case, and you don’t.
Your ignorance of the real-world conditions allows you your fantasy of a world in which rule-followers are rewarded and scofflaws are punished.
Further, there is a moral issue, in that a lot of the violence and instability that pushes people to emigrate is because of American demand for regional hegemony and American appetites for recreational drugs. We are partly responsible for why their countries aren’t safe places to live. You’d probably disagree with that, which is fine. Just my opinion.
Hmmm, I’m starting to wonder if maybe “just that stupid” is the most parsimonious explanation for your behavior after all.
Once again: Civilized nations do not base their decisions on whether or not to extrajudicially murder people committing illegal acts on criteria as idiotic and morally oblivious as “hmmm, if I DID extrajudicially murder everybody committing this illegal act, would that guarantee taking out 100% of the really dangerous baddies?”
Do you really not understand why we as a nation would not, and should not, murder pedestrians just for jaywalking even if we could guarantee that no escaping criminals would ever be able to avoid our indiscriminate jaywalker-slaughter by choosing not to jaywalk?
We don’t execute people merely for jaywalking, or shoplifting, or double-parking, or illegal border crossing, because those illegal acts don’t warrant immediate deadly force in response. Not even if we’re worried that some of the people committing those particular illegal acts might also be genuinely dreadful baddies.
Because we—or at least most of us—aren’t paranoid, irrational, irresponsible idiots.
Look, you’re the one coming up with a silly hypothetical: a situation where someone proposes to kill all the jaywalkers, even though jaywalking presumably has nothing to do with being an escaped criminal. You shouldn’t double down by saying no, but what if it could work? What you’re saying starts off wrong — evil and stupid, but also counterproductive, since they can simply not jaywalk. And then it gets worse.
I’m saying the whole point of having people get evaluated, and get permission or get stopped, at a port of entry is that it has plenty to do with the factor in question. They can’t simply get evaluated, and get permission or get stopped, at a port of entry, because that’s the exact thing they’re against. That’s the exact thing they’re trying to get around. For that exact reason.
The jaywalking thing lacks that, and so seems silly, because it is silly.
Cheesesteak claimed that we aren’t supposed to punish people who haven’t had their day in court. Imprisonment, intentional drowning, and forcing one to crawl over razor wire were given as examples of punishment.
That is all correct. I drew a distinction between placing razor wire, which isn’t punishment, and forcing someone into the wire, which is. That’s not a trivial distinction. I won’t defend those who push people into the river (or into razor wire). I don’t even think Texas would defend that behavior.
If I thought asylum-seekers had the right to cross the river, my opinion would be different. Were that the case, placing the razor wire would burden their rights, and it would be a punishment. But I don’t think asylum-seekers have the right to enter the U.S. anywhere they please. Under U.S. law, the right to seek asylum attaches when at a port of entry or when already in the country.
We can’t punish asylum-seekers for merely entering the country without permission, at least we can’t impose any punishment that burdens their right to seek asylum. If asylum is granted, we can’t punish them for entering without permission. If it isn’t, we’re still obligated to limit our punishments to those authorized by law: after a hearing adjudicating unlawful presence, deportation, or upon conviction, a fine or up to 6 months imprisonment.
It’s no sillier than the hypothetical of proposing to kill all the illegal border crossers, even though illegal border crossing in the vast majority of cases has nothing whatever to do with being a hostile invading army.
Yes, it’s evil and stupid to propose indiscriminately murdering people merely for crossing designated boundaries where they’re legally not supposed to. Glad we could finally reach agreement on that.
You’re doubly wrong in this irrational insistence. For one thing, as Dr.Drake correctly noted, plenty of illegal border crossers actually may be entitled to legally authorized entry, and are not in any way “against” it, but in their desperate circumstances can’t effectively seek it out.
For another thing, we still shouldn’t murder illegal border crossers even if we knew for sure that everybody attempting illegal border crossing was not eligible for authorized legal entry. Just as we still shouldn’t murder jaywalkers even if we knew for sure that everybody trying to jaywalk was legally prohibited from crossing that particular street.
Because, in both cases, the offense that the lawbreakers are committing does not warrant the death penalty. Much less indiscriminate extrajudicial murder.
Maybe you just need to practice wrapping your head around the notion of not arbitrarily murdering people merely for nonviolently breaking a law. Not even in situations where you’ve explicitly warned them not to break the law and they do it anyway, the annoying scoundrels.
Unless you are a straight-up bloodthirsty dictator, you don’t get to just up and kill people for nonviolently failing to comply with your instructions about boundary crossing protocol.
Good news is private citizens and organizations can sponsor refugees seeking asylum. They provide funds to house clothe and feed the asylum seekers while they’re here for the year seeking asylum.
That’s not good news. That’s government abdicating responsibility and hoping that private citizens will take it up. It’s the same “good news” that brings us charter schools and for-profit health care with private insurance and hoping that churches will solve the problems of homelessness and addiction. But I guess it is the American way…
Yeah, my temple does that, and I’ve participated. But it’s not “good news” for people seeking entry. We are only allowed to sponsor a refugee AFTER they’ve been admitted to the US. Our being willing to sponsor refugees does jack shit for people trying to escape a refugee situation, it only mitigates the hardship of being here with no resources, after they’ve been allowed in.
In its initial phase, the program will only apply to refugees who have already been approved for resettlement in the U.S. By mid-2023, Welcome Corp’s second phase will allow prospective sponsors to support refugees not yet in the country. The State Department hopes to match 10,000 private sponsors with at least 5,000 refugees in the program’s first year.*