Some people enter illegally but have the right to live in the US (some legitimate refugees, for example).
Tons of people cross the border legally and overstay their visas. Those people aren’t even “undocumented,” though they have no legal right to reside in the US.
Some cross the border illegally and remain illicitly.
Some of that last category received an amnesty in the 1980s and are now legal residents or citizens.
Some people cross the Mexican border, others the Canadian border, others come in by sea or even air.
Given the way you lay it out, I suppose I’d say — people who have no legal right to be in the US, but do so anyway? There’s probably a more elegant way of putting it, and corner cases to address, but at first blush that seems to cover the bases.
no offense but when you have dr deth pointing out that even for a conservative like him you are taking an extreme assholic position on the matter you need to take a step back and think things through
And I believe the current system was devised by white racists to keep brown people out, the same way generations worth of immigration laws were written to exclude Asians and Italians and Irish and Jews and other non-WASPy peoples.
My point was that a large number of illegal immigrants did not enter illegally, which was the original complaint.
I know my own ancestors came in legally, insofar as that was a thing, but my mother overstayed and was here illegally for 30 years, and go back far enough and other ancestors weren’t immigrants so much as invaders and colonizers—hardly civilized behaviour, but that’s what founded the country.
I’m against people entering illegally — that’s unchanged — and, as it happens, I’m also against people being here illegally without having entered illegally. (I’m also against plenty of things that, AFAICT, haven’t been mentioned yet in this thread, much like how I’m for plenty of things that likewise haven’t been mentioned yet in this thread.)
I suppose I’m on about two things: whether the law should be changed, and what we should do so long as long as the law hasn’t yet been changed.
As to the former, I believe that what’s in the best interests of the country is, well, having would-be immigrants make their case as to why it’d be in the best interests of this country to grant permission; that’s why I said that stuff upthread about going case-by-case, and granting or withholding permission accordingly. And if someone doesn’t get permission, but decides to break the law and do it anyway — why, I find that reprehensible. Heck, you can cut my hair if you get my permission, or tattoo me if you get my permission; or borrow my car if you get my permission, or live in my house if you get my permission — but it’s unacceptable for you to do any of that without the relevant permission, because the permission is what’s crucial. And this is that multiplied by, what, the country?
As to the latter, so long as someone hasn’t gotten that permission and is here illegally — well, look, IIRC someone upthread mentioned speed limits, and I view them the same way: maybe I want the speed limit raised on a given stretch of road, but until that changes I of course expect the law to be applied as it happens to be. Heck, maybe I want the speed limit lowered on a given stretch of road, but until that day comes I of course expect people to get away with driving at what the speed limit is rather than get fined for driving faster than I’d like the limit to be. And on a spectrum from Pay A Quarter For Returning A Library Book A Day Late all the way to Locked Up For The Rest Of Your Life For Murder, maybe I want to change things so people will face a harsher penalty or a lighter one, but I expect the current penalty to be applied until and unless things are, uh, changed.
Well, here’s a bit from CNN, earlier this year, noting that “The Pew Research Center’s latest estimates indicate about 10.5 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States.” If that doesn’t suffice, let me know what would.
Didn’t you once say that if you lived in the antebellum South you wouldn’t free a black slave, even at absolutely no risk to yourself, because to do so would be against the law? It seems strange that you don’t have more of an understanding of The Other Waldo Pepper’s position.
Quick question for Waldo. What about Cuban refugees? What’s the moral difference between those who manage to make it to American soil and those who are caught by the Coast Guard at sea?
It’s my understanding that: “On January 12, 2017, PresidentBarack Obama announced the immediate cessation of the wet feet, dry feet policy. Since then, Cuban nationals who enter the United States illegally, regardless of whether they are intercepted on land or at sea, have been subject to removal.” And I — agree, I guess, that Cuban nationals who enter the United States illegally, regardless of whether they are intercepted at land or at sea, should be subject to removal as if there were no moral difference between the situations?
Okay, so that’s now. But what was the moral difference between those two groups before the policy ended? Oh, and are you unfamiliar with the concept of requesting refugee status?
Are you seriously asking what a cite about “undocumented immigrants” (and a cite about “unauthorized immigrants”) has to do with a claim about “illegal aliens” (or, one supposes, “illegal immigrants”)? If it helps, consider this from the Washington Post, noting that the Biden administration had announced a number of changes in terminology:
That’s what’s being referred to. There’s no mystery here. What one has to do with the other is that one is the other.