Thank you for proving the point I was making upthread.
Seriously, what relevance does that have? What possible relevance? Why does that fact matter even a little bit when it comes to someone who has lived in our country for all but 6 months of his life? If you break the law, is it all right for me to send you off to die in the streets of a country you have never known? Does a criminal record make this any less of a cruel, senseless act?
But no. He was “a criminal”, so it’s fine to send him off to die, and we don’t have to care about the insane cruelty at play here. Any excuse not to care. Our government murdered this man, but hey, he was “no angel”, so who cares if the government sends someone to their death?
The fact that this man is a criminal is not relevant or important to the story of our government sending someone who came here as an infant to die in the streets of Iraq. It is, however, an excuse not to care, if you are in fact searching for one.
Seems to me that we wouldn’t be having these raids and family separations and concentration camps if the refugees were from fine European stock rather than being a little more pigmented than white Americans. If Sweden went to hell and people there were in mortal danger from gangs every day, would we put them in camps when applying for asylum? Would we deport parents to go home and die and keep their children here in concentration camps? Would we try to rationalize it and say “well, they can go home and die whenever they want to, so it doesn’t matter that we keep them in inhumane conditions”? You bet your sweet ass we wouldn’t. American right wingers tolerate it, they condone it, they fucking love it because they are at their very core, racist. So the worse that Donald’s SS shock troops treat the immigrants, the more solid his support among his racist base.
Career criminals are exactly the kind of immigrant that I’m fine with deporting. I only wish all natural-born citizen career criminals could be deported, too. I’m not happy that the guy is dead, but I am happy that he is no longer in the US commiting crimes. If this was the only type of immigrant being deported, I’d be all for it.
Aside from the fact that King Cannot can’t be trusted to keep this sort of thing under wraps, I have to wonder if secrecy was mandated from on high in order to maintain plausible (snerk) deniability. “Make these raids as horrific as possible, but don’t tell us in advance so we can deny all knowledge in case it blows up in our faces.”
I don’t hang around on RW boards — I’m of an age where I have to watch my blood pressure — but have they started floating the idea that the children are “crisis actors” imported by the television station (or maybe antifa)?
Also, they tried a raid at a homeless shelter in Brooklyn (although in this case they were apparently after a specific person) but were turned away by staff who wouldn’t let them in without a proper warrant. A small victory, but also a reminder that these people are not omnipotent.
That’s silly. You think that if 10 or so million immigrants were here illegally from a different region of the world that they’d be ignored? Look at other countries and examine their response to mass migration. Concerning the restrictions on immigration, are all laws, policies, and sentiment throughout the world white supremacy or white nationalism?
Do you think that 1,000 Swedes would be treated as harshly by American authorities as 1,000 Guatemalans? No, not every country in the world is run by white nationalists. That doesn’t stop white nationalists from trying.
Yeah, when agents of the state have power to kill some will kill. That’s terrible. Funny thing is the left always looks to increase the reach and power of the very state that is responsible for mass incarceration in horrific jails. The same state that has the power to regulate and tax and spend on everything you like needs the threat of punishment for compliance. Now, you are just upset that the power of the state is being employed against a bloc that might be politically convenient for the democrats in a generation.
But let’s say you are leaving politics out of it and are strictly concerned with humanitarian concerns. That’s real good and kind. However, the magnitude of the problem and unintended consequences are going to result in far more suffering in the future.
That’s bad as well. Unfortunately we live in a world where human labor is still a critical component of productivity. Figure out a system where goods and services are produced effectively and distributed exceedingly efficiently without the profit motive being involved and the world will benefit. Until then, you can’t have a system that destroys the incentives to innovate and produce. Is there room for improvement? Yes. But free everything isn’t it.
That’s all terrible. But what happens to children when their parents break any other law and are detained? What we are doing currently I don’t agree with. I don’t agree with treating people, be they American citizens, POWs, or immigrants being treated poorly. And we are treating people horribly. All forms of detention need to be brought to a much higher standard and I’m disgusted they are not. We have a punitive and vindictive culture and it’s disturbing. Look at the prison rape jokes. Rape isn’t funny.
It’s no excuse. We shouldn’t be handling illegal immigration or crime in general the way we do. But we can’t ignore the root causes. One of which is that a substantial portion of elected officials ignore the law and promote de facto open borders for personal political gain. Be outraged all you wish about kids in cages. It is outrageous. It’s also outrageous that American politicians have in part created the conditions that have led to a backlash and a crackdown. And the results aren’t just limited to USA. In many other countries there is a resurgence of nationalism because of short sighted migration enforcement policy. You think the rise of nationalism is dangerous and scary now wait 20-40 years when mass migration really ramps up.
People do care. But the problems that lead to mass migration aren’t going to be solved by opening the borders. It feels good to help 1-2 doesn’t it? Multiply that by a thousand or a 100 thousand and it still feels good. A nation like ours could probably take in more people than we have and more than are here currently. However, unconstrained mass migration will involve more than a million or two.
Some facts: the world has ~7.5 billion people. The median household income is ~$10,000. Around 1/2 the planet lives on ~$2.50/day. That’s a lot of people and that’s a lot of income disparity. That means just for economic reasons alone there is a tremendously strong pressure to migrate. If there were no border controls I guarantee you the rich countries would be seeing tens, if not hundreds, of millions of migrants. It would be inevitable.
Do you think the US, Japan, Australia, Europe, and China should take in a billion or more collectively due to economic migration? Without borders or border control that would happen. Why wouldn’t someone making a dollar or day or less move to a country with running water, sewers, and free health care?
So, if the compassionate thing is to open the borders and take care of people why not just say it? Run on open borders.
What’s an alternative? Fixing the corrupt, dangerous, gang infested countries they come from? How? Without invading the country and going door to door and confiscating weapons how can we or anyone else do that? We don’t have the will to do that in countries we are actually at war with. Could do it. But we don’t. So it probably isn’t happening.
So we aren’t fixing the now. Ok, what about the future that is coming? Population is projected to be 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, 11.2 billion in 2100. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of food needed. That’s a lot of energy needed for electricity.
Coinciding with the increase in population is a decrease in land and food due to the rise of the ocean. Now people must move. You can’t stay in land that is 10 feet under water. Global warming isn’t going to be dealt with because short sighted behavior and desires are what people want satisfied. People severely discount future costs due to present behaviors.
So aside from “caring” what do you propose to actually do that treats the cause instead of 2nd order effect?
Point being, as bad as the USA is. As bad as Trump is. So-called white nationalism is not the root cause of the maltreatment of people and migrants globally.
Why are you so invested in rationalizing and making excuses for this awful stuff? The Trump administration is on record as valuing the purposeful harm of migrant families and children. That’s a new policy, not an old one – they want migrants and even migrant children to suffer, for deterrent purposes – according to their own words. Do you really think this has nothing to do with racism and bigotry? That doesn’t seem credible, considering the hateful rhetoric of Trump, his administration, and his supporters.
It doesn’t mean that there’s not lots of other bad stuff that needs to be corrected. But Trump really is especially bad – far worse than normal. It’s appropriate to focus special attention on the especially terrible stuff he’s overseeing.
When you say “a substantial portion of elected officials ignore the law and promote de facto open borders for personal political gain.” to counter the idea that it’s not all Trump’s fault, you are kinda making excuses. Refugees don’t flood north because they’ve heard about sanctuary cities. The volume of immigrants/refugees is almost entirely attributable to economic conditions and violence levels further south.
But it’s not just a “terrible job” – it’s hateful policies that are purposefully meant to harm families and children. That’s a new phenomenon, and not something to gloss over.
Sending him to an unknown place he’d never been, and virtually certain death, is less cruel and senseless because he’s done some bad things? Can you explain the reasoning behind this? I can understand deporting a criminal – even a diabetic criminal – but not to a place they’ve never been, and in which his death would be near-certain in the short-term.