4 ms·

Let's take illegal immigration. Is it wrong for this administration to enforce our current laws? If so maybe the laws need to be crafted to something differen

by Yhippa 10y ago

Let's take illegal immigration. Is it wrong for this administration to enforce our current laws? If so maybe the laws need to be crafted to something different. While I don't agree with this administration's methodology this is probably the first time in a while I have seen the reality of our existing laws being executed and now we're seeing the effects of that. I am generally pro-immigration but I like to challenge my own thoughts and biases to make sure I don't have any blind spots.

dmode 10y ago
Immigration laws were already being enforced vigorously. Obama administration set the record in deportation and was often called the "Deporter in Chief". And all of this was done without raising xenophobia and labeling a group of people as hard criminals and rapists.
- darkmouth 10y ago
  I think they are referring to the protests that arose when media reported that non-violent illegal immigrants are being deported.
  - davidw 10y ago
    Like when a mother was separated from her sons? I wonder why that might set people off...
    - dlp211 10y ago
      Furthering your point. Consider that Paul Ryan also doesn't want to deport dreamers/daca or break up families [1] is it any surprise. This isn't a partisan POV, there are legislators on both sides of the aisle that recognize the complexity of the problem and that ultimately it doesn't make sense to be so black-and-white. Our immigration process is severely broken especially for migrant workers. They are an integral part of our economy and would, in most cases, choose to come here legally if they were given the opportunity. What we should be doing is giving these people work visas with a path to citizenship. We have already seen the adverse effects of eliminating illegal immigrants from being able to work as farm labor, crops rot in the field [2], and when prices rise, it will present opportunities to importers to put farmers out of business for good. I should also state that I have no issues with deporting, though I don't understand why we don't incarcerate, unauthorized immigrants who commit violent crime(s). These people should be removed from our society. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/13/in-remarkable-exchange-with-undocumented-mom-paul-ryan-exposes-cruelty-of-trumpism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/13... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/#12c47f96404a http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-u...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- jlewis7272 10y ago
  </sarcasm>
- awfgylbcxhrey 10y ago
  Obama administration set the record in deportation I read the other day that this is an artifact of a change made under Bush that redefined deportation to include turning anyone away at the border.
- devinhelton 10y ago
  Immigration laws were already being enforced vigorously. Obama administration set the record in deportation and was often called the "Deporter in Chief" These statistics are hopelessly confounded by changes to the definition of "deportation" and are not to be viewed as reliable: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/21/lies-damned-lies-and-obamas-deportation-statistics/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/2...
  - dmode 10y ago
    I hope you had a chance to read through the end of the article. Here's the relevant portion: "CORRECTION: The original post claimed that Obama had de-emphasized removals and concentrated on returns and that the ratio of his removals to returns was skewed toward returns compared to his predecessors. That claim is not correct because based on DHS’s data, (Table 39: Aliens Removed and Returned, FY 1892-2012) his cumulative numbers since taking office show Obama has removed a total of 1,974,688 people and returned 1,609,055 others. There have been more returns than removals only in FY 2009 and 2010. Moreover, comparing across administrations is not wise given the changes in law and counting procedures." So even if you count removals only, they removed ~2mn people and this article was published in 2014. If you add returned, this swells to nearly 4mn
darkmouth 10y ago
I am a staunch liberal and I don't understand the hostility towards deportation of illegal immigrants either. Calling illegal immigrants undocumented immigrants doesn't make the illegal part go away.
- cr0sh 10y ago
  Deportation probably wouldn't be such a problem if they weren't also deporting legal residents along with the "illegal" ones. Yes - this happens. We still don't know how many Sherriff Joe and other officials in Arizona deported. It was basically a program here of "if you're brown enough, don't speak enough english, and can't produce any docs on the spot" you had a good chance of being rounded up, sent to an ICE facility, then deported. Even if you were a born-here American - just because you were of Mexican descent, and didn't learn english.
  - leesalminen 10y ago
    Serious question: why would an American citizen choose to not learn the national language? Doesn't that disadvantage you severely in life?
    - darkmouth 10y ago
      The other day I was at a mexican restaurant and the waiter forgot to bring water. I got up and went to the kitchen to ask where the water cooler was. The woman who saw me was unable to understand what "water" meant. Water. Let that sink in.
      - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
        Ok, so ask, "Donde esta el agua?".
    - splintercell 10y ago
      It's not just about 'choice', I live in a predominantly Russian neighborhood with a Russian wife, but no matter how hard I try I can't learn Russian because they all very conveniently speak English. Similarly, if you're Hispanic, it would be hard for you to learn English if everyone else around you speaks a convenient language (i.e. Spanish), even if they could speak both the languages easily. It's kind of a trap, you'd learn English more easily if you left Spanish speaking community, but because you don't know English, it's hard to leave that community.
davidw 10y ago
General immigration reform along these lines is what's needed: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number... http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/opinions/making-legal-immigration-attainable-johnson/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/opinions/making-legal-immigrat... Because the current system is really broken: see what it's like to try and immigrate, legally, from Mexico if you just want to do manual labor.
- Yhippa 10y ago
  > Because the current system is really broken: see what it's like to try and immigrate, legally, from Mexico if you just want to do manual labor. See, this is what would be most interesting for me to discuss with my friends. There is obviously a demand for those services that Americans possibly don't want to do (I'm not completely clear on if they want to or not). What can we do to make this a more sane process for everybody involved? I thought there was some progress in the past and the Republicans were almost on board but it never got over the hump for whatever reason.
  - davidw 10y ago
    > What can we do to make this a more sane process for everybody involved? It probably doesn't involve starting from the premise that they're "bad people". My answer would be more along the lines of "ok, you can come and work, just register and complete this background check, and you'll be good to go in a month". It might involve a longer wait for citizenship or no access to certain benefits, which is something that is, of course, already in place for legal immigrants, or other compromises, but making otherwise honest people 'illegal' isn't really working. Letting honest people go through an easy process also has the benefit of 'separating the wheat from the chaff' - if you see someone who is sneaking around or otherwise not documented, you have a much stronger reason to think they're up to no good, rather than simply washing dishes on the sly.
  - naravara 10y ago
    >Republicans were almost on board but it never got over the hump for whatever reason. The "whatever reason" you're grasping at is the latent racism of the Republican base. As much as you want to believe the focus is on "illegal" immigration the Republican base understands this as a coded dog whistle for not liking Brown people. It's not about a marketplace of ideas, it's about signaling which tribe you align with. The marketplace of ideas happens in the policy world, not the political world.
jlewis7272 10y ago
Are you pro-immigration or pro-illegal immigration?
- aetherson 10y ago
  I'm both. I mean, I'd love to not be pro-illegal immigration, and if we significantly loosened our immigration laws (not to the point of genuine open borders, but to the point where a reasonable person had a path to permanent residency in the US without it being a lottery), then I'd be anti-illegal immigration. But with the status quo, I'm pro-illegal immigration.
TheCoelacanth 10y ago
> Is it wrong for this administration to enforce our current laws? No, but it is wrong if it breaks other laws in the attempt to enforce the law. Any realistic attempt to deport millions and millions of people will almost invariably run afoul of the 4th amendment because there would be no way to find that many people without unlawful searches.

by Yhippa 10y ago

dmode 10y ago

Immigration laws were already being enforced vigorously. Obama administration set the record in deportation and was often called the "Deporter in Chief". And all of this was done without raising xenophobia and labeling a group of people as hard criminals and rapists.

darkmouth 10y ago
I think they are referring to the protests that arose when media reported that non-violent illegal immigrants are being deported.
- davidw 10y ago
  Like when a mother was separated from her sons? I wonder why that might set people off...
  - dlp211 10y ago
    Furthering your point. Consider that Paul Ryan also doesn't want to deport dreamers/daca or break up families [1] is it any surprise. This isn't a partisan POV, there are legislators on both sides of the aisle that recognize the complexity of the problem and that ultimately it doesn't make sense to be so black-and-white. Our immigration process is severely broken especially for migrant workers. They are an integral part of our economy and would, in most cases, choose to come here legally if they were given the opportunity. What we should be doing is giving these people work visas with a path to citizenship. We have already seen the adverse effects of eliminating illegal immigrants from being able to work as farm labor, crops rot in the field [2], and when prices rise, it will present opportunities to importers to put farmers out of business for good. I should also state that I have no issues with deporting, though I don't understand why we don't incarcerate, unauthorized immigrants who commit violent crime(s). These people should be removed from our society. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/13/in-remarkable-exchange-with-undocumented-mom-paul-ryan-exposes-cruelty-of-trumpism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/13... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/#12c47f96404a http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-u...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
jlewis7272 10y ago
</sarcasm>
awfgylbcxhrey 10y ago
Obama administration set the record in deportation I read the other day that this is an artifact of a change made under Bush that redefined deportation to include turning anyone away at the border.
devinhelton 10y ago
Immigration laws were already being enforced vigorously. Obama administration set the record in deportation and was often called the "Deporter in Chief" These statistics are hopelessly confounded by changes to the definition of "deportation" and are not to be viewed as reliable: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/21/lies-damned-lies-and-obamas-deportation-statistics/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/2...
- dmode 10y ago
  I hope you had a chance to read through the end of the article. Here's the relevant portion: "CORRECTION: The original post claimed that Obama had de-emphasized removals and concentrated on returns and that the ratio of his removals to returns was skewed toward returns compared to his predecessors. That claim is not correct because based on DHS’s data, (Table 39: Aliens Removed and Returned, FY 1892-2012) his cumulative numbers since taking office show Obama has removed a total of 1,974,688 people and returned 1,609,055 others. There have been more returns than removals only in FY 2009 and 2010. Moreover, comparing across administrations is not wise given the changes in law and counting procedures." So even if you count removals only, they removed ~2mn people and this article was published in 2014. If you add returned, this swells to nearly 4mn

darkmouth 10y ago

I am a staunch liberal and I don't understand the hostility towards deportation of illegal immigrants either. Calling illegal immigrants undocumented immigrants doesn't make the illegal part go away.

cr0sh 10y ago
Deportation probably wouldn't be such a problem if they weren't also deporting legal residents along with the "illegal" ones. Yes - this happens. We still don't know how many Sherriff Joe and other officials in Arizona deported. It was basically a program here of "if you're brown enough, don't speak enough english, and can't produce any docs on the spot" you had a good chance of being rounded up, sent to an ICE facility, then deported. Even if you were a born-here American - just because you were of Mexican descent, and didn't learn english.
- leesalminen 10y ago
  Serious question: why would an American citizen choose to not learn the national language? Doesn't that disadvantage you severely in life?
  - darkmouth 10y ago
    The other day I was at a mexican restaurant and the waiter forgot to bring water. I got up and went to the kitchen to ask where the water cooler was. The woman who saw me was unable to understand what "water" meant. Water. Let that sink in.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      Ok, so ask, "Donde esta el agua?".
  - splintercell 10y ago
    It's not just about 'choice', I live in a predominantly Russian neighborhood with a Russian wife, but no matter how hard I try I can't learn Russian because they all very conveniently speak English. Similarly, if you're Hispanic, it would be hard for you to learn English if everyone else around you speaks a convenient language (i.e. Spanish), even if they could speak both the languages easily. It's kind of a trap, you'd learn English more easily if you left Spanish speaking community, but because you don't know English, it's hard to leave that community.

davidw 10y ago

General immigration reform along these lines is what's needed: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number-of-immigrants.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-optimal-number... http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/opinions/making-legal-immigration-attainable-johnson/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/opinions/making-legal-immigrat... Because the current system is really broken: see what it's like to try and immigrate, legally, from Mexico if you just want to do manual labor.

Yhippa 10y ago
> Because the current system is really broken: see what it's like to try and immigrate, legally, from Mexico if you just want to do manual labor. See, this is what would be most interesting for me to discuss with my friends. There is obviously a demand for those services that Americans possibly don't want to do (I'm not completely clear on if they want to or not). What can we do to make this a more sane process for everybody involved? I thought there was some progress in the past and the Republicans were almost on board but it never got over the hump for whatever reason.
- davidw 10y ago
  > What can we do to make this a more sane process for everybody involved? It probably doesn't involve starting from the premise that they're "bad people". My answer would be more along the lines of "ok, you can come and work, just register and complete this background check, and you'll be good to go in a month". It might involve a longer wait for citizenship or no access to certain benefits, which is something that is, of course, already in place for legal immigrants, or other compromises, but making otherwise honest people 'illegal' isn't really working. Letting honest people go through an easy process also has the benefit of 'separating the wheat from the chaff' - if you see someone who is sneaking around or otherwise not documented, you have a much stronger reason to think they're up to no good, rather than simply washing dishes on the sly.
- naravara 10y ago
  >Republicans were almost on board but it never got over the hump for whatever reason. The "whatever reason" you're grasping at is the latent racism of the Republican base. As much as you want to believe the focus is on "illegal" immigration the Republican base understands this as a coded dog whistle for not liking Brown people. It's not about a marketplace of ideas, it's about signaling which tribe you align with. The marketplace of ideas happens in the policy world, not the political world.

jlewis7272 10y ago

Are you pro-immigration or pro-illegal immigration?

aetherson 10y ago
I'm both. I mean, I'd love to not be pro-illegal immigration, and if we significantly loosened our immigration laws (not to the point of genuine open borders, but to the point where a reasonable person had a path to permanent residency in the US without it being a lottery), then I'd be anti-illegal immigration. But with the status quo, I'm pro-illegal immigration.

TheCoelacanth 10y ago

> Is it wrong for this administration to enforce our current laws? No, but it is wrong if it breaks other laws in the attempt to enforce the law. Any realistic attempt to deport millions and millions of people will almost invariably run afoul of the 4th amendment because there would be no way to find that many people without unlawful searches.