My Proposals for Immigration Reform to Counter the Wall.

[Checkerboard Strangler]

No free health care from taxpayer funded health care providers.

Guess what'll happen if those "truants" get apprehended...they and their families get deported.

So you refuse to link to anything that shows taxpayer funded health care for illegals, thus we're referring to something you made up. Got it. Or were you talking about emergency rooms?

That's pretty much what illegals can avail themselves of on the taxpayer dime where healthcare benefits are concerned, that and children's healthcare programs.

Are you saying that enabling child epidemics is a good thing? Got it.

 

[Redress]

*stuff snipped for space*

1. Enact legislation defining birthright citizenship per original Congressional intent; i.e. a baby born of either a current citizen or a non-citizen legal resident. This would eliminate the anchor baby lure.

Since SCOTUS has ruled (see Wong Kim Ark) that jus soli citizenship exists, congress cannot do this. You would need either a constitutional amendment, which is not happening, or a SCOTUS ruling(the likelihood of which is debatable).

2. Enact a law requiring immediate deportation of anyone caught entering or residing illegally after a simple proof of legal residence hearing in immigration court. If you don’t have proper verifiable documentation, you are deported with prejudice (i.e. found guilty of violating immigration law and will be imprisoned for up to one year if you return, followed by immediate deportation again.)

That is not how the justice system works in this country. People do not have to prove their innocence. I doubt that would get past the courts, and I would oppose any effort to do so. That idea is to my mind un-American.

2a. Enact a law creating a central record (much like the NCIC) and require all apprehended illegal aliens be fingerprinted, photographed, and (maybe) DNA identified.

I have no problem with that.

2b. Enact a law making return from deportation incrementally greater punishment if found guilty at trial via imprisonment (misdemeanor, 3rd degree felony, 2nd degree felony, etc.) then deportation.

Locking up potentially thousands of people is going to get real expensive, and I am not sure how effective it would be, but I am not opposed to this.

3. Enact a law that authorizes path to citizenship for DACA members, followed by a PERMANENT ban on future immigration amnesty. Immigration law can still be modified by quotas or other methods, but ALL immigrants must come in via legal methods.

Banning people of the far future from doing things based on the politics of today is ****ing retarded. Thankfully, anything congress can do, they can undo, so such a ban would only be to appease those who don't really think about the issue.

4. Require E-Verify for ALL employment which would qualify someone for unemployment benefits, or if working for a 501 (c) 3 tax exempt Religious, Charitable, etc. organization, or suffer loss of ALL Federal funding until it is enacted at the State level. (This has the added advantage of addressing identity theft). It would also leave small non-taxed employers free of the expense. Your lemonade stand or other family-employed business is safe.

I have no problem with this.

5. Offer rewards for reporting employers who hire illegal immigrants, followed by civil fines, and/or criminal prosecution of repeat offenders.

I am torn on this one, but not seriously opposed. Leave out the reward part(it encourages people to report people without real evidence for the possibility of cash reward) and I would support easily.

or to be fair:

6. Immigration law? We don't need no stinking new immigration law.

I do not know of any one who seriously believes that.

and:

7 Other (explained).

Those are the poll selections and it is a multiple choice poll. Let's see where people stand when it comes to alternative to a border wall.

Continued due to character limit in next post.

 

[Cephus]

With that attitude, you will never have any minorities voting Republican. Basically, you are saying that the only reason why blacks vote Democrat is they are lazy and they like free stuff.

We already have plenty of blacks voting Republican and if you go talk to them, they're saying the same thing about people on the other side of the aisle. It's why the left keeps pushing identity politics and "everything is racist". Because they know that it appeals to people who have been raised to believe that everyone is out to get them and their failures are not their fault.

 

[Redress]

There are no real effective solutions to illegal immigration. As long as their is high levels of violence and extreme poverty in other countries, people will find a way to get into the country illegally, and stay here. What we need to do is encourage the legal methods of immigrating, and discourage the illegal ways as much as is practical. The problem with your ideas is they largely enter the realm of impractical. One last thing to address, from the start of your post:

Some people opposed to “Trump’s Wall” are arguing that it will never be 100% effective, even if built. That it’s a boondoggle that migrants will go over, under, and around anyway. Many of these same people say our current Immigration system is either fine, as is, or needs to be tweaked to make it more “fair and easier to navigate.” Some few even argue there is no need for border security at all.

The argument against the wall is not that it is not 100 % effective, but that it is a highly inefficient use of resources. A wall large enough to make a difference would be so tremendously expensive to build and maintain, that money could do more to stop illegal immigration spent elsewhere. Further, while I know of no one who says illegal immigration is not a problem(note: I am sure some one says it, but not in any significant numbers), but I do think that it is not a major problem. Illegal immigration has been a problem since basically forever ago, and we have grown and succeeded as a country despite that. Pouring cast amounts of resources into the problem is not the best use of those resources.

 

[Redress]

Not really.

Item one is supported by legislative intent at the time the Amendment was proposed, as a simple examination of the available records will show. Moreover, the main SCOTUS precedent United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898) based the argument on legal residence of the plaintiff's parents, who had resided in the US for work purposes under a treaty with China all of his life.

Congress can easily clarify what constitutes birthright citizenship. Only an activist Court would then overrule such a definition.



It already exists, it has just been misinterpreted.

That is something of a misrepresentation of what Wong Kim Ark did.

The foregoing considerations and authorities irresistibly lead us to these conclusions: the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

We are at a fiscal impass with President Trump, supported by a Majority of the Senate holding out for wall funding, and a Majority of the House pushing for appropriations without Wall funding.

Some people opposed to “Trump’s Wall” are arguing that it will never be 100% effective, even if built. That it’s a boondoggle that migrants will go over, under, and around anyway. Many of these same people say our current Immigration system is either fine, as is, or needs to be tweaked to make it more “fair and easier to navigate.” Some few even argue there is no need for border security at all.

On the other hand, some people for the Wall point out that no wall is 100% effective, yet we still use them anyway because they do help to control and channelize access. That if properly manned and monitored it would greatly decrease illegal migrant access.

I suggest that we would not need a wall if ALL of the following were done through the legislative process:

1. Enact legislation defining birthright citizenship per original Congressional intent; i.e. a baby born of either a current citizen or a non-citizen legal resident. This would eliminate the anchor baby lure.

2. Enact a law requiring immediate deportation of anyone caught entering or residing illegally after a simple proof of legal residence hearing in immigration court. If you don’t have proper verifiable documentation, you are deported with prejudice (i.e. found guilty of violating immigration law and will be imprisoned for up to one year if you return, followed by immediate deportation again.)

2a. Enact a law creating a central record (much like the NCIC) and require all apprehended illegal aliens be fingerprinted, photographed, and (maybe) DNA identified.

2b. Enact a law making return from deportation incrementally greater punishment if found guilty at trial via imprisonment (misdemeanor, 3rd degree felony, 2nd degree felony, etc.) then deportation.

3. Enact a law that authorizes path to citizenship for DACA members, followed by a PERMANENT ban on future immigration amnesty. Immigration law can still be modified by quotas or other methods, but ALL immigrants must come in via legal methods.

*********Snip**************************************
Moderators. It keeps timing out without letting me add the 9 choices. Please add items 1 through 7 with 2a and 2b. Thanks.

The first two are never going to happen without an amendment to the constitution.

More importantly though, considering that illegal immigration has been flat for years, the number of illegal immigrants in the country has declined, there are only about 7.8 million illegal immigrants in the workforce, and that has declined as well, why is this such a big deal? Seriously, as far as problems this country has to deal with, this is nothing, so why try to move heaven and earth to try to curb something that isn't that big of a problem.

Seriously, why are some people so damn obsessed with this? All of our economic peer nations have problems with illegal immigration. This is not something unique to the United States. Any country with a high standard of living and a good economy will have people from other countries coming to it to work illegally. Unless you want to erect the equivalent of the Berlin Wall around the United States where you get shot if you get anywhere near it, we are always going to have illegal immigrants coming here seeking work and / or safety. You can blow all your political capital trying to pass that crap, and in the process destroy any future for the Republican Party in an America that is becoming more and more diverse, or you could actually worry about real problems in this country like opioid epidemic, the fact we have millions of Americans whose jobs have been automated or will be automated and are going to be trained for the jobs of the future, Medicare costs as our population ages and more and more people are over 65, the affordability of higher education and many other issues that actually impact the lives of most Americans.

The fact that the county is getting less white might bother some people, but it's not a problem that needs to be solved.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

We already have plenty of blacks voting Republican and if you go talk to them, they're saying the same thing about people on the other side of the aisle. It's why the left keeps pushing identity politics and "everything is racist". Because they know that it appeals to people who have been raised to believe that everyone is out to get them and their failures are not their fault.

Plenty? In most elections its 5% or less. That would be 1 in 20. The fact is, the Republican Party is an almost all white, older, Christian party, and your post about blacks voting Democrat is a perfect example why that is the case.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

I wouldn't interpret it that way, but his words have merit.

Some will take that attitude. But to extend it as "the only reason" is very, very short sighted in my opinion.

So you take the soft racism interpretation then. Perhaps its not that they are lazy and want free stuff. It's because one party is inclusive and represents them better than the other. Blacks vote Democrat for the same reason that Muslims do, Jews do, Asians do, Gays and Lesbians do and so on. Nobody wants to be a member of a club where half the people in the club don't like them at best, and see them as a threat to society at worst.

 

[Captain Adverse]

Since SCOTUS has ruled (see Wong Kim Ark) that jus soli citizenship exists, congress cannot do this. You would need either a constitutional amendment, which is not happening, or a SCOTUS ruling(the likelihood of which is debatable).

That's what you think the SCOTUS ruled. However, the argument for allowing the plaintiff citizenship was based on the history and LEGAL basis of residence of the Parents. That's the only reply necessary.

That is not how the justice system works in this country. People do not have to prove their innocence.

That is how the system works in a immigration hearing to determine if a person may remain in the country. Moreover, the Court can warn the claimant that to return after deportation will result in a criminal trial.

Locking up potentially thousands of people is going to get real expensive, and I am not sure how effective it would be, but I am not opposed to this.

Only initially. Remember, the process is progressive, i.e. first offense six months and deportation, second offense nine months and deportation, etc.. Once migrants are made aware of this process, many will cease to try, at least doing it illegally.

Banning people of the far future from doing things based on the politics of today is ****ing retarded. Thankfully, anything congress can do, they can undo, so such a ban would only be to appease those who don't really think about the issue.

Really? Isn't that the basis of criminal law, the "Banning" of something illegal? So say someone breaks out of jail and manages to stay free for 10 years, then by your argument sending them back to prison would be unfair because they did nothing wrong those 10 years. :roll:

Meanwhile you failed to note that coming in legally as well as actual modifications to immigration law making it easier to do so were mentioned as remaining possible.

 

[Captain Adverse]

The first two are never going to happen without an amendment to the constitution.

More importantly though, considering that illegal immigration has been flat for years, the number of illegal immigrants in the country has declined, there are only about 7.8 million illegal immigrants in the workforce, and that has declined as well, why is this such a big deal? Seriously, as far as problems this country has to deal with, this is nothing, so why try to move heaven and earth to try to curb something that isn't that big of a problem.

Seriously, why are some people so damn obsessed with this? All of our economic peer nations have problems with illegal immigration. This is not something unique to the United States. Any country with a high standard of living and a good economy will have people from other countries coming to it to work illegally. Unless you want to erect the equivalent of the Berlin Wall around the United States where you get shot if you get anywhere near it, we are always going to have illegal immigrants coming here seeking work and / or safety. You can blow all your political capital trying to pass that crap, and in the process destroy any future for the Republican Party in an America that is becoming more and more diverse, or you could actually worry about real problems in this country like opioid epidemic, the fact we have millions of Americans whose jobs have been automated or will be automated and are going to be trained for the jobs of the future, Medicare costs as our population ages and more and more people are over 65, the affordability of higher education and many other issues that actually impact the lives of most Americans.

The fact that the county is getting less white might bother some people, but it's not a problem that needs to be solved.

Your entire argument is the fallacy of "all or nothing" (similar to the slippery slope)...i.e. "it's not going to be 100% effective, so why bother at all?"

First, walls alone are never 100% effective to a truly dedicated person seeking entry. Yet we still use them because they are effective most of the time in preventing/channeling entry, and are more effective than simply doing nothing.

Then you add the "racism" argument, which is an emotional appeal based on moral panic..."evil white people trying to keep other people out." While there are some racists who argue this...that is NOT the basis for most arguments.

The real basis is both economic and cultural.

Economics because unrestricted increases in unskilled population while automation and other advances are reducing employment serve to create unnecessary competition in the workforce. It also adds to burdens on educational resources as people compete for schools and training with an ever growing number of competitors seeking more qualifications for fewer jobs. It also adds strain to the Social Welfare system and a commensurate increase in taxation.

Cultural in that our current culture is what has made our system work so well and caused this desire for others to share in our success. However, as we see not only in the E.U. but simply by a review of world history, MIGRANTS seek to take advantage of the existing socio-economics of the host country while at the same time seeking to CHANGE it culturally into their own images. Often to the detriment of the society they seek to convert, converting it into the same mess they fled from in the first place.

Those are the reasons for trying to limit migration. Not "racism."

 

[Redress]

That's what you think the SCOTUS ruled. However, the argument for allowing the plaintiff citizenship was based on the history and LEGAL basis of residence of the Parents. That's the only reply necessary.

Well, no, that would be wrong. Might help if you read the whole ruling.

That is how the system works in a immigration hearing to determine if a person may remain in the country. Moreover, the Court can warn the claimant that to return after deportation will result in a criminal trial.

Sorta. There are alot of caveats to that, such as right to appeal. ANd the government has to show some evidence they are here illegally.

Only initially. Remember, the process is progressive, i.e. first offense six months and deportation, second offense nine months and deportation, etc.. Once migrants are made aware of this process, many will cease to try, at least doing it illegally.

There are about ~11 million illegals in the US. Best numbers I can find have over 50k apprehensions each month for the first 2 months of FY2019. So even starting at 6 months, the cost is going to be huge.

Also, deterrence is only effective if the penalty is worse than not committing the crime. For a large portion of immigrants, the risk of being locked up is worth it to them. Extreme poverty and violence are motivators.

Really? Isn't that the basis of criminal law, the "Banning" of something illegal? So say someone breaks out of jail and manages to stay free for 10 years, then by your argument sending them back to prison would be unfair because they did nothing wrong those 10 years. :roll:

They are not PERMANENT bans. I assumed your use of the word PERMANENT(in all caps) meant something.

Meanwhile you failed to note that coming in legally as well as actual modifications to immigration law making it easier to do so were mentioned as remaining possible.

I did not mention that as it was not germane to my argument.

 

[Redress]

So you take the soft racism interpretation then. Perhaps its not that they are lazy and want free stuff. It's because one party is inclusive and represents them better than the other. Blacks vote Democrat for the same reason that Muslims do, Jews do, Asians do, Gays and Lesbians do and so on. Nobody wants to be a member of a club where half the people in the club don't like them at best, and see them as a threat to society at worst.

A black lady explained it to me. She pointed out that when republicans talk about "black issues" or try to appeal to black voters, they always talk about welfare and crime, and that is pretty much it. Well, criminals and welfare moms don't vote in large numbers. Most black voters are lower middle class and struggling to get and keep jobs that pay enough so their kids have better lives than they did.

 

[Mycroft]

So you refuse to link to anything that shows taxpayer funded health care for illegals, thus we're referring to something you made up. Got it. Or were you talking about emergency rooms?

That's pretty much what illegals can avail themselves of on the taxpayer dime where healthcare benefits are concerned, that and children's healthcare programs.

Are you saying that enabling child epidemics is a good thing? Got it.

I'm saying, if you want to de-incentivize people coming to the US illegally, end their ability to get free health care from taxpayer funded health care providers.

If those illegal aliens have sick kids, we'll treat them...and then deport them.

 

[Captain Adverse]

Well, no, that would be wrong. Might help if you read the whole ruling.

Actually I have read the whole thing, many times.

Maybe YOU should do so.

The plaintiff's parent's resided in the USA under a treaty with China. They were here legally to work, and he was born and spent his first 17 years in the USA. He actually left at 17 to visit China and returned with no problems. It was after a second trip when he was in his 20's he returned from that led customs officials to challenge his rights of citizenship.

The arguments run through all sorts of historical examples, but the bottom line? His parents were LEGAL residents and he was born in the USA, which made them subject to the jurisdiction of the USA (not simply criminal jurisdiction like an illegal immigrant) but right to work, reside, etc. jurisdiction as well.

Nothing in that ruling prevent's Congress from clearly defining what constitutes the phrase "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to mean a child born of a parent/parents who legally resided in the USA at time of his birth.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Your entire argument is the fallacy of "all or nothing" (similar to the slippery slope)...i.e. "it's not going to be 100% effective, so why bother at all?"

First, walls alone are never 100% effective to a truly dedicated person seeking entry. Yet we still use them because they are effective most of the time in preventing/channeling entry, and are more effective than simply doing nothing.

Then you add the "racism" argument, which is an emotional appeal based on moral panic..."evil white people trying to keep other people out." While there are some racists who argue this...that is NOT the basis for most arguments.

The real basis is both economic and cultural.

Economics because unrestricted increases in unskilled population while automation and other advances are reducing employment serve to create unnecessary competition in the workforce. It also adds to burdens on educational resources as people compete for schools and training with an ever growing number of competitors seeking more qualifications for fewer jobs. It also adds strain to the Social Welfare system and a commensurate increase in taxation.

Cultural in that our current culture is what has made our system work so well and caused this desire for others to share in our success. However, as we see not only in the E.U. but simply by a review of world history, MIGRANTS seek to take advantage of the existing socio-economics of the host country while at the same time seeking to CHANGE it culturally into their own images.

Those are the reasons for trying to limit migration. Not "racism."

First off, we are an immigrant county, thus you cannot compare us to "Old Europe". Immigrants here quickly assimilate as compared to most countries. Secondly, there is no American culture. There is as much of a cultural difference between the rural South and a city like Seattle as there is between the United States and France. We have always been a cultural hodgepodge.

Finally, if you want to curb illegal immigration, then the government simply needs to get some good IT people. For example, my wife has worked in Worker's Comp Defense before. There are times when she will pull someone's social and its being shared by a dozen workers around the country. That is an IT problem. Any CIO or CSO of a major corporation would look at that as an IT issue. We don't need e-verify, or anything like it. We just need to tell some good IT people that you need to do with social security numbers at employers the same thing we do with thwarting phishing attacks, throttling content scraping, and detecting malicious logins. I work in IT, have for over 20 years now. There is no reason when you use someone's social security number to obtain employment, that it should not be immediately flagged. The IRS should have that data immediately, and it should be automatically sent to ICE. Silicon Valley could solve our illegal immigration problem in a matter of months because they would create a system where it would be impossible to hire on with a company and use a fraudulent social security number.

If one of my user's logs in from a location that it would be physically impossible for them to travel to in the time since they last logged in from their trusted location, I am automatically notified. Any good IT department should have those basic safeguards in place. Yet, our government, always technology wise decades behind, can't do that with social security numbers and employers. Our illegal immigration problem is simply an IT problem.

 

[azgreg]

No. Your are not correct. We cannot 100% impose our law on 100% of the foreign people in our nation. That invalidates your position. We have always had agreements with other countries where sometimes we have to ignore our laws for their citizens.

Excluding diplomats, which foreigners are exempt from which laws?

 

[ALiberalModerate]

A black lady explained it to me. She pointed out that when republicans talk about "black issues" or try to appeal to black voters, they always talk about welfare and crime, and that is pretty much it. Well, criminals and welfare moms don't vote in large numbers. Most black voters are lower middle class and struggling to get and keep jobs that pay enough so their kids have better lives than they did.

They don't even get that it's not just black people that don't vote Republican. It's all minorities. East Asians on average earn even more than Whites do, yet they don't vote Republican because no one wants to be in a club where half the people hate you.

 

[Captain Adverse]

First off, we are an immigrant county, thus you cannot compare us to "Old Europe". Immigrants here quickly assimilate as compared to most countries. Secondly, there is no American culture. There is as much of a cultural difference between the rural South and a city like Seattle as there is between the United States and France. We have always been a cultural hodgepodge.

First off, technically speaking, we were a MIGRANT country, with most "migrants" coming from Europe and supplanting the native peoples who already resided here. When those migrants first arrived they just wanted "some small space to live," (also for many, especially in the highly developed areas of the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs, easy access to gold thanks via Conquistadores.) But as entry points developed, it became a drive to take and develop more land, completely at the expense of the initially tolerant natives.

After the U.S. was created it sought more migrants (now "legally" immigrants) to take and develop as much of the continent as they could at the expense of any and every native and foreign competitor. I've discussed this before:

There has been a lot of debate surrounding how America should handle the issues of Latin American immigrants and Moslem refugees...

I have no problems with immigration regardless of race, religion, creed, or national origin...but ONLY if the intent is to assimilate into our culture, not try to replace it with theirs.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

First off, technically speaking, we were a MIGRANT country, with most "migrants" coming from Europe and supplanting the native peoples who already resided here. When those migrants first arrived they just wanted "some small space to live," (also for many, especially in the highly developed areas of the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs, easy access to gold thanks via Conquistadores.) But as entry points developed, it became a drive to take and develop more land, completely at the expense of the initially tolerant natives.

After the U.S. was created it sought more migrants (now "legally" immigrants) to take and develop as much of the continent as they could at the expense of any and every native and foreign competitor. I've discussed this before:



I have no problems with immigration regardless of race, religion, creed, or national origin...but ONLY if the intent is to assimilate into our culture, not try to replace it with theirs.

It didn't stop at our founding. We have had waves of migrants since our founding. Western Europeans , Africans by force, then Eastern Europeans, then East Asians, and now largely Latin Americans and Asians.

With every new wave of migrants, nativists raised all kinds of hell, talked about the destruction of what they saw as American culture and so on. None of this is new.

There is no American culture. The only thing that is uniquely American is our preservation of wilderness and the fact we have high gun ownership rates. That is it. Other than that, what separates us culturally from any other immigrant country? Nothing. You think entrepreneurship is American? If so you have obviously never been to China. You think a house with a yard is American? Obviously never been to Canada, Australia, or any other rich low population density country. You think capitalism is American? You have never been to Singapore then. An immigrant that comes here and moves to Minneapolis will have an entirely different cultural experience than one that comes here and moves to East Texas. An immigrant that comes here and moves to New Mexico will have an entirely different cultural experience than one that comes here and moves to Virginia. An immigrant that comes here and moves to Nebraska will have an entirely different cultural experience than one that comes here and moves to South Florida.

When people talk about "American culture", what they are talking about are those around them, their friends, neighbors and peers. This is why you hardly ever hear anyone in a diverse community talk about "preserving American culture", because there is very little culturally that defines all Americans.

Simply put, American culture is immigrants coming here and bringing us their cultures.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I'm saying, if you want to de-incentivize people coming to the US illegally, end their ability to get free health care from taxpayer funded health care providers.

If those illegal aliens have sick kids, we'll treat them...and then deport them.

And I'm pointing out that when you reference "taxpayer funded medical", you're referencing something that does not exist, other than the ER.
EMTALA regulations enacted into law in 1986 by the Reagan administration specify that sick patients cannot be turned away from an emergency room.
If you have a problem with EMTALA, take it up with your local Republicans.

Good luck to you with your "we'll treat them, then deport them" goals.
I am not against deporting criminals who are here illegally, but if they came here from Mexico, they're already a vanishing breed as proved by the numbers provided by immigration officials themselves these last few years. Net migration of Mexicans into the US is actually a negative number. This has been proven and repeatedly shown to be proven so many times that I am not even bothering to post a link, either you already know it and don't give a damn, or you're not interested in facts.

So, when it comes to Latin America, that leaves El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Panama, Costa Rica, Belize and all the nations of South America. People migrating here from the first four countries might have refugee status or might qualify for refugee status. Persons from the other nations mentioned are so few in number that there might not be recent figures for them.
Are you supporting the deportation of refugees or persons who might qualify for refugee status?

I'm getting the sense that you're not actually interested in the problem, you're just seeking that euphoric feeling that you get from Trump.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Unless you want to erect the equivalent of the Berlin Wall around the United States where you get shot if you get anywhere near it

Based on the tone of the responses from MOST of the Trump supporters, both here and elsewhere, that is EXACTLY what they want. He has drummed up the fear response in their super-sized amygdalas to the point where there is no point in even discussing it with them anymore.

At least Captain Adverse gets credit for trying to hammer out something reasonable.
It's mostly conservative, but that's not poison. We can work with regular conservatives.

The others, not so much.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Meanwhile you failed to note that coming in legally as well as actual modifications to immigration law making it easier to do so were mentioned as remaining possible.

The problem is, our immigration laws have flip flopped so dramatically back and forth over the last sixty or seventy years that the entire system is a big fat cruel joke. If you're a prospective immigrant looking to come to the United States from a poor country, it means that you better start saving up for the costs as much as ten years in advance, and the problem is, every five years the rules change.

We have gone from a working system (ELLIS ISLAND) to the bracero program, to Operation Wetback (which resembled Captain Renault's scene in Casablanca) to the nonsense of the last forty years.
Dammit, let's just enact legislation and stick with it, and seeing as how it is clear that immigrants will NEVER stop trying to come to the United States, let's at least create a system which is fair, equitable, at least somewhat egalitarian, and which makes it clear that it is more sensible to try coming here legally in the first place, ahhh but I repeat myself.

You cannot expect people to respect our immigration laws when they are dripping with hypocrisy and appear from the outside looking in to be draconian and unaffordable to all but the one percent of other nations. And while I am sure Trump supporters will jump up and say "But that's all we want coming here!", let's put that in perspective for a moment:

Trump just said this morning that "he can relate to all the federal workers who are going without pay".
Yeah, right...a man who has never known want of any kind in his entire life and who lived as a king from the day he was born "can relate".....TO NOTHING.

People who think it is realistic to expect and accept only the top one percent of other nations as prospective immigrants are not living in the real world, no more so than people who expect us to welcome three billion poor people with no conditions whatsoever.

 

[TheRepublican]

It’s funny how people who do not have any evidence that this wall is not sufficient because of the democratic party is scared to lose elections. Of course, you are going to come back and dismiss this as I’m just talking. It’s funny how the democratic party had some Democrats that would be considered as a Republican today if the 2006 security fence act bill was introduced this year. I would really like to sit down with the majority leader and ask him. Did you regret the 2006 vote because it’s on the public record? I want to challenge number six which is we don’t need a new immigration law. Do we even have any laws on immigration? The Democrats are making it like they are on a pedestal and I cannot understand why? It’s funny how we are sending foreign aid, but they are coming into the country and if you don’t like it. They don’t care. Is there is a different way to define trespassing

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Yet, our government, always technology wise decades behind, can't do that with social security numbers and employers.

We're too busy sucking the appendages of people who want to continue "drowning the government in the bathtub", and you're expecting them to want to pay for modernization of government IT infrastructure?



I realize that you understand this already, I was just reinforcing the point. Trump Republicans don't even want a working US Postal system, much less a modernized government IT infrastructure.

They want government to consist of one sheriff and a bunch of vigilantes and militia men, PERIOD.

DIY border security!!!

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I have no problems with immigration regardless of race, religion, creed, or national origin...but ONLY if the intent is to assimilate into our culture, not try to replace it with theirs.

I'm going to ignore the first part of what you said because even at the tender age of sixty-two I know it is utter WASP nonsense that dates back to the Charles Lindbergh days. In fact, it's almost straight out of Mister Potter in "It's a Wonderful Life."

"Yes sir, trapped into frittering his life away playing nursemaid to a lot of garlic-eaters."

("It Happened One Christmas" - a loose remake of "It's a Wonderful Life")


You speak as someone who hails from the "America First" era prior to World War Two.

But as to the BOLDED part in RED, we used to do exactly that, even as recently as when I was a young man. We finally learned how to do it and we did it for a little while, after WW2 and up until the 1990's or so. Our own wildly gyrating immigration policies at the time were often in conflict with the mood of the American people, but we did it anyway as best we could.

America fell in love with a Cuban refugee bandleader with a funny accent, at the height of the Cold War, (who by the way invented the modern filmed 3-camera sitcom), because we welcomed immigrants and those immigrants responded by assimilating to a reasonable extent AS Americans.



Again, it was because they felt welcome, we helped them feel welcome, and they felt that they had a chance. The reason so many immigrants don't assimilate as well as they used to in recent years is because they feel that they are under attack, thus they form insular communities where they feel more at home, and they rightly interpret attempts at assimilation as a further attack on what little community they feel they still have left.

And when you add to it the never ending stream of news stories and cell phone videos of Trump supporters screaming at mothers and children in supermarkets, libraries and restaurants to "GO BACK TO YOUR COUNTRY!!!", you wind up wondering if anyone really believes that we are capable of functioning as a society at all. These people, these fat screaming witches and angry cretins sound like people who would eat their own young if given half a chance.
Why would anybody want to assimilate into a "culture" that looks and sounds like that?

WHAT CULTURE?? We used to have a culture but WE frittered it away.
No one replaced it, we have replaced it with something no worthwhile human being would take seriously.

PS: I Love Lucy cinematographer Karl Freund was able to emigrate to America in 1929, but only because he had developed an international reputation. Today, he would not be welcome, especially if his skin was brown.