# What's a Dem President going to do about the border problem?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [July 3, 2019, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450 "2019-07-03T13:14:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/21 "2019-07-03T18:24:53Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> The second a Democrat is elected, the border will stop being a ‘crisis’, the media will stop reporting on the detention centers, and the Nobel people will start polishing up another prize.
Nonsense. If the Obama administration or any other Democratic administration had done a tenth of what the Trump administration has been doing, Fox News would have run the story as its lead every night.
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### Author:  [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/22 "2019-07-03T18:40:53Z")
> [@RitterSport](#):
>
> The difference in the figures may be because there may be many court dates involved, and immigrants without legal and translation help may miss some of them.
There’s another bigger reason, according to [this source](https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/FACT_CHECK_Court_Appearance_Rates.pdf):
> [@American Immigration Council](#):
>
> …immigration court cases often require multiple hearings before they can be completed and, due to skyrocketing backlogs in the last decade, the average immigration court case takes almost three years to complete.
>
> The government’s statistic counts failures to appear only against the number of cases that are fully completed. By doing this, it neglects to account for the many immigrants who appeared in court in ongoing cases that have not yet reached completion.
> As a result, because tens of thousands of immigrants appeared in court in 2017 but did not have a case completed, EOIR’s number does not represent the rate at which immigrants missed court.
They describe other problems with the statistic under discussion, but I think the misleading nature of bad math is pretty well illustrated already.
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### Author:  [@Wolf333](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolf333)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/23 "2019-07-03T18:45:41Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> A Dem could go back to catch and release and hope the press doesn’t report that between [a quarter and a third of immigrants don’t show up for their hearings](https://cis.org/Report/Courting-Disaster). Whether that counts as doing something is another issue.
>
> Regards,
> Shodan
Based on past history, I’ll go with the non-lying piece of shit cite.
> **[Almost all asylum-seeking families show up for court, report finds](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-family-asylum-20180817-story.html)**
>
> With policies on migrant families under increased public scrutiny following the Trump administration’s rote separation of children from their parents, advocates are pushing back on proposals to increase family detention.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/24 "2019-07-03T19:02:51Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> A Dem could go back to catch and release and hope the press doesn’t report that between [a quarter and a third of immigrants don’t show up for their hearings](https://cis.org/Report/Courting-Disaster). Whether that counts as doing something is another issue.
And so? That means the vast majority do show up. Some dont, and stay as illegals, some go back.
People who show up requesting asylum shouldnt be imprisoned. They should be released.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/25 "2019-07-03T19:06:45Z")
> [@Wolf333](#):
>
> Based on past history, I’ll go with the non-lying piece of shit cite.
>
> [Almost all asylum-seeking families show up for court, report finds](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/immigration/sd-me-family-asylum-20180817-story.html)
Yep: \* Looking at 15 years of immigration court data, researchers from the American Immigration Council found that 96 percent of families requesting asylum who passed through detention facilities showed up for their immigration court hearings.\*
What the much higher figure is based upon is that quite a few miss their first hearing date, and have to get a second one. Big freaken deal.
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### Author:  [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/26 "2019-07-03T19:12:00Z")
The asylum system is broken and being abused even Fareed Zakaria who is not a Trump fan agrees with him on this:
[https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnns-fareed-zakaria-says-trump-was-right-about-asylum-system-pains-me-to-say](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnns-fareed-zakaria-says-trump-was-right-about-asylum-system-pains-me-to-say)
It’s out of control now, and they can’t keep up, so the Dem solution is to what just keep letting people flow freely through a porous border?
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### Author:  [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/27 "2019-07-03T19:28:35Z")
> [@pool](#):
>
> …the Dem solution is to what just keep letting people flow freely through a porous border?
I keep hearing this as well as that Democrats are calling for “open borders”. Can anyone provide a factual cite that this policy is being proposed? Because to me, it just sounds like rhetoric used to scare people who are afraid of or have hatred toward immigrants.
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### Author:  [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/28 "2019-07-03T19:32:10Z")
> [@Arcite](#):
>
> Given that many of them have endorsed decriminalizing illegal immigration, how is the answer to the OP’s question not “nothing?” They’re going to simply let the 750 million or so people worldwide who say they want to move to the USA, do so.
Decriminalizing illegal immigration doesn’t mean that illegal immigrants won’t continue to be deported, it just means that we won’t waste the taxpayers’ money imprisoning them for some period of time before deporting them.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/29 "2019-07-03T19:39:02Z")
> [@pool](#):
>
> The asylum system is broken and being abused even Fareed Zakaria who is not a Trump fan agrees with him on this:
>
> [https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnns-fareed-zakaria-says-trump-was-right-about-asylum-system-pains-me-to-say](https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnns-fareed-zakaria-says-trump-was-right-about-asylum-system-pains-me-to-say)
>
> It’s out of control now, and they can’t keep up, so the Dem solution is to what just keep letting people flow freely through a porous border?
Yeah, Fox is not a reliable cite on this issue… or any issues, really.
And people dont flow freely through the border. However, a influx of ag workers coming here is actually good for the economy and the nation.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/30 "2019-07-03T20:00:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Given that Obama built the child cages, and there were detention centers and all the rest when he was president of a ‘scandal free’ administration
The difference between that administration and this? The children were being voluntarily separated by virtue of them crossing the border alone, not being forcibly separated from families they crossed with, and released into the custody of a relative when one was found.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/31 "2019-07-03T20:46:02Z")
Heads gotta roll. Purge CBP senior staff.
ICE seems to get more hatred because it kidnaps immigrants who are integrating & throws them into concentration facilities. But CBP isn’t even following our laws, and they’re blatantly trafficking children. Both of these agencies need to have a lot of firings, and a few indictments.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/32 "2019-07-03T20:54:54Z")
> [@E-DUB](#):
>
> Seriously, let folks start seeing a few heads of big agribusiness doing perp walks and I’ll believe you’re trying to solve the problem rather than just demagoguing it.
For the crime of giving someone a job?
US immigration law is a series of overreactions to ‘crimes’ that can’t possibly be that serious. The whole exercise is bizarre and escalating in bizarreness.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/33 "2019-07-03T20:58:03Z")
> [@Arcite](#):
>
> Given that many of them have endorsed decriminalizing illegal immigration, how is the answer to the OP’s question not “nothing?” They’re going to simply let the 750 million or so people worldwide who say they want to move to the USA, do so.
That’s my policy. I mean, I’m not spending the logistical expenses to move everyone here & house them, but let them come, find out it’s not that great, and go home again.
Seriously, several different economic realities are going to keep the immigrant population pretty low. Opening the borders really isn’t that dangerous.
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/34 "2019-07-03T21:00:47Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> I don’t know… Given that Obama built the child cages, and there were detention centers and all the rest when he was president of a ‘scandal free’ administration, why do the Democrats have to do anything?
>
> The second a Democrat is elected, the border will stop being a ‘crisis’, the media will stop reporting on the detention centers, and the Nobel people will start polishing up another prize.
I hate to admit that given partisanship here, you have a point.
But I think that the likes of Rashida Tlaib are really serious about this, at least. We who want humane treatment of immigrants, whichever party we are in, are not just fighting a rival party, but the dominant culture in both major parties.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/35 "2019-07-03T21:04:11Z")
> [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](#):
>
> I keep hearing this as well as that Democrats are calling for “open borders”. Can anyone provide a factual cite that this policy is being proposed? Because to me, it just sounds like rhetoric used to scare people who are afraid of or have hatred toward immigrants.
Yes, why do conservatives act like the only two possibilities are opening the borders and letting everyone in and shutting down the border and keeping everyone out? Why are they excluding the obvious middle course; letting some people in and keeping some people out?
Maybe it’s because this is a reasonable course of action and Republicans know their base isn’t interested in reason.
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### Author:  [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/36 "2019-07-03T21:52:05Z")
> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> Yeah, Fox is not a reliable cite on this issue… or any issues, really.
>
> And people dont flow freely through the border. However, a influx of ag workers coming here is actually good for the economy and the nation.
Did you click the link and watch the video of Fareed Zakaria who works for CNN, did you agree with any of his points?
Countries whose murder rates have been dipping but have huge increases in asylum claims, attempting to gain asylum because of domestic violence which if I’m not mistaken goes on in America with regularity, how the numbers of those seeking asylum have skyrocketed, repeating the same phrases and stories as other asylum seekers making sure they say certain key words or phrases, none of that sounds suspect?
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2019, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/37 "2019-07-03T22:10:20Z")
The worst part of the right wing’s approach to the current crisis is thinking that this has anything to do with our immigration laws or enforcement of them.
Shame on them, and the ignorance they embrace.
The current crisis is one of violence. Right now, the countries of the Northern Triangle where the vast majority of the migrants are from are in terrible shape. And yet, I think your average Fox viewer would think they are Mexicans.
You know what happens when countries fall apart? People flee. Germany, the Eastern Bloc, Vietnam, Syria, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Cambodia, the list goes on and on.
And yet, the simpletons who want a wall would probably look at that list of crises and think, “Gee, what kind of immigration laws did the receiving countries have?”
Gah. The obvious answer to our immigration crisis is to work with others so that the various countries in crisis get better. Spend $30 billion on that, and no more migrants from the Northern Triangle, plus the world will be a better place.
Or spend $30 billion on the wall, and the migrants will still come. Because climbing a 30 foot wall is preferable to being murdered.
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### Author:  [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2019, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/38 "2019-07-04T00:00:52Z")
“What’s a Dem President going to do about the border problem?”
…have you considered going to the respective candidates and seeing what they each had to say on the issue? They all have different policies and ideas. A Biden presidency will handle things very differently from a Warren presidency as would a Sanders presidency. The answer to your question is “it depends on who gets elected.”
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### Author:  [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2019, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/39 "2019-07-04T00:13:42Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#):
>
> Decriminalizing illegal immigration doesn’t mean that illegal immigrants won’t continue to be deported, it just means that we won’t waste the taxpayers’ money imprisoning them for some period of time before deporting them.
If all that will happen is deportation, then why not try to cross the border illegally? What do you have to lose? Worse case scenario you are right back where you started ready to try again.
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2019, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-a-dem-president-going-to-do-about-the-border-problem/836450/40 "2019-07-04T00:22:49Z")
> [@UltraVires](#):
>
> If all that will happen is deportation, then why not try to cross the border illegally? What do you have to lose? Worse case scenario you are right back where you started ready to try again.
Just a question on your views of people crossing borders: let’s say that civil war breaks out in the US, and West Virginia falls into a state of chaos in which you and your family fear for your lives because of marauding murderers having put a target on you.
Can you envision a circumstance in which you may seek safe haven in another country? How do you think you should be treated when fleeing for your lives?
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