I think we should change the law so that those who are here working and raising families without criminal behavior (other than crossing the border and staying) can stay here. I think we should have reasonable border controls without a wall.
That’s a bullshit comparison. We are much larger, wealthier, and more powerful than our neighbors. A more reasonable comparison would be Russia allowing immigration from Latvia/Estonia/Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and neighbors, but even that is pretty far from our situation considering their relative size and prosperity.
I strongly believe that in general, immigrants make America stronger and better, however they arrive. Some small number will be criminals, and an even smaller portion might be extremists, but add them all together and I think America is better with them than without them. This doesn’t hold as an absolute rule – America would not be stronger and better if every person in the world tried to move to America all at once. But with real world numbers and trends and expectations, it does, in my opinion. So I think we should have an immigration policy that allows motivated and decent and hard-working people to come to America, with reasonable border controls, vetting, and at a reasonable rate. A comprehensive immigration plan similar to many that have been proposed would probably hit most of these wickets to some degree, in my view. I strongly oppose Trump’s view on immigration both because it’s inhumane and because it makes America weaker and worse, and I want America to be stronger and better.
Reasonable rate is what? Because I believe what you believe. And so do most. But that’s because “reasonable rate” is never defined. Do you have a number?
Not off the top of my head, but I’m open to suggestions. If I had to pick some value as a starting point for the discussion, I’d say an average of the rate for the last 30 years or so.
But I don’t think that’s what most Republicans, at least, believe – they supported Trump, largely for his views on immigration, which amounted to booting anyone here illegally, building a wall, and banning Muslims from entering, among other things.
I don’t think “if you can lie or sneak your way into the country you can stay, if you are honest then you’re out of luck” is a coherent policy.
Americans do want a path to citizenship for illegals who are law abiding, but they also don’t want to see another 12 million to deal with 20 years from now. Supposedly we have a “crisis”. Well, fix the crisis, don’t just plant the seeds of the next one.
Comprehensive immigration reform (at least some of the proposals), from my understanding, would move these “lie or sneak your way into the country” immigrants to a legal path, since there would be a reasonable one available for them.
But further, why would 12 million in 20 years be a big problem? The 11 million or so we have now isn’t a problem except that they’re undocumented – they’re mostly great people who make America better by being here. So document them and boot the criminals and extremists, and then try to do it as they arrive for future waves.
That’s the idea, you have to have a system that works as written. Otherwise it’s not rule of law, it’s not even democracy, since the system is what the bureaucrats want, not what the people or their elected representatives wrote down.
Well then you’d have to knock heads among those who profit from undocumented labor, and the consumers who would complain about higher prices. THAT is where you really address the demand-side factor, and where the pressure comes from on the Representatives to look the other way when law is enforced idiosyncratically. (never mind if we’re deporting MORE people…)
Except the people do actually have majority support for a path to citizenship. The problem is that the connection between that and our chosen representatives has broken down. Hence why Congress has a low approval rating.