You’ve noticed, the myth that the bulk of immigration is illegal and that the only alternative to Fortress America is 100% Open Border seems to be hard to dislodge.
But hey, fine, no prob: don’t let illegals in or around. Now… OTOH …Here is a 100% legal immigrant with all their documentation in order. And their also 100% aboveboard legal immigrant neighbor. And their children and their children’s children. And they continue to speak their mother tongue at home *and among one another in public places *and give themselves names from that culture, continue to attend their Non-Evangelical-Protestant place of worship, and walk around in public wearing garments indicative of their culture or faith. And 20 years down the road, your grandchild and theirs are in the same school and on Tuesdays the Pledge of Allegiance is read in *their *language, and the invocation before a large public event is as likely delivered by clergy from *their *religion as by someone from First Baptist or the local Catholic Bishop.
I am completely fine with that situation arising. I don’t live in the same culture my grandfather was born into, and I do not feel harmed by it. If through various combinations of migration, marriage and life choices my great-grandchild is half-Asian, of Jewish religion, and her primary language is neither Spanish or English, I have not been harmed, she has not been harmed, the country has not been harmed. Get used to pressing 1 for English.
There are laws that govern immigration. They should be followed or changed. Not have a blind eye turned towards them because it may benefit your political party.
That is actually a transparent policy though. Failure to enforce our immigration laws is not. Our policy is enforcement. What actually happens is as little enforcement as they can get away with. Or in Obama’s case, stepped up enforcement, but only to build support for less enforcement later. But since Obama has shown what can be done, we can continue that policy. ICE can’t be stopped short of a new law or a LEGAL executive order, and ICE now has the manpower and funding to make a real dent.
There are plenty of unenforced laws on the books, because ignoring them is far easier than repealing them. As long as it’s technically illegal to walk around main street in Texas on a Sunday with an ice cream cone in your pocket, I’m going to be okay with friendly families moving into my neighborhood from the “wrong” places. Even if the US immigration quota for their nationality is “zero”.
Act as you wish. Good luck arguing from a point of consistency that others must follow laws you feel are important. And you no border advocates are ok with let’s say 85 million people immigrating from China? No limits at all?
No, I’m not a big proponent of laws, period. My posting history illustrates that. I do support morals, though, and denying people the right to freely and voluntarily negotiate their rent and wages simply on the basis of their national origin is not only highly immoral, it’s completely un-American and frankly downright Communist.
Here’s a question: are you okay with 10 million New Yorkers moving to your town? No limits at all? Or should we make it illegal for people from New York to move to your city?
Or are there other option this question has ignored? Namely, the fact that 85 million Chinese or 10 Million New Yorkers migrating anywhere in a short period of time is hilariously fictional, and that draconian laws shouldn’t be passed to deal with fictional occurrences? And if you take out the unspoken “short period of time” aspect, the question loses all its power to frighten? And also, this is a free country and why the hell shouldn’t someone be able to move to your town?
There are towns in Florida that have tripled in size over a generation mostly by old people moving there from New York. It’s not that scary. Jeb didn’t have to “extreme vet” them, or anything. People survived, and it just wasn’t a big deal at all.
We, as a nation, have decided to enforce the borders to some degree. Being in the country illegally and having issues due to breaking immigration laws, laws that most nations have AND enforce, is more than just an issue of national origin. You try it. Move to Canada or some other perceived progressive utopia and see how they treat you if you violate their laws.
And if you are for a no border policy just embrace it. You may be for unlimited numbers of any country coming and settling at any time but most countries and most people would disagree.
Freely negotiate rent and wages? So I assume you are opposed to rent control, rent subsidy, and minimimum wage laws?
There’s no physical way for 85 million (or any number with a couple of orders of magnitude) to immigrate into the US quickly (say, within a year or two) with present security and border controls. That’s a nonsense concern in the real world. If that started to happen (and it would only happen with a catastrophe like a massive war or natural disaster) we would see it months or even years ahead of time and we could pass specific legislation to deal with it. It’s not relevant to the real-world issue of immigration and border security.
So, there is a limit to what those on the left would be willing to absorb? Why’s that? And why would this “special legislation” be any more likely to be followed or enforced than the current legislation?
Seriously? Were you under the impression that liberals thought it would be okay for the US to absorb 20 quadrillion immigrants per minute?
Cite that it’s not being followed or enforced? I don’t mean opinions, I mean court cases that have worked through the system and rulings have been made that such and such wasn’t being enforced and blah blah blah.
That might make sense if there was a general consensus that this should be our policy. There is no such consensus, which is why some policymakers have tried to implement it in secret, or outright lie to the public by promising more enforcement in exchange for an official amnesty and path to citizenship. We all know no enforcement will be forthcoming. There will be no nationwide attempt to prevent illegal hiring(yet employers will still be required to hassle citizens about their paperwork), and there will be no biometric entry/exit systems, and people who want to come here legally will still be hassled and punished for using the system.
So how much illegality are you comfortable with? In the real world we have over 10 million here illegally. I think we should enforce the law and jot just ignore it for political purposes.
I don’t think we should deport people who’ve been here for a substantial amount of time and have children here etc. But we can’t incentivize illegal mass immigration by turning an absolute blind eye to it.
You think a nation like Latvia or Estonia should allow unfettered migration into their nations from Russia? How’d that work out for Ukraine with regards to the Crimea?
In the real world, we can deport about 400,000 per year, and we can also implement nationwide e-verify and biometric entry/exit systems, which can combat visa overstays. These policies would substantially reduce illegal immigration.
Sure, that’s a big part of it–as long as it also means maintaining fundamental values (it would be a Pyrrhic victory if Democrats were dominant but didn’t stand for the same thing any more).
Now, of course you can parse the meaning of the poll options in various ways; but what you can’t deny is that this is a big shift in public opinion, given that they asked the question in the same way each time.
