5 ms·

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

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.
    - leesalminen 10y ago
      > 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. That sounds exactly like a choice to me. You chose to take the easy route and communicate in a common language. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but absolutely a choice. Why did you choose that option? I lived in Chile for a while. Although many people spoke English, I chose to learn their language and communicate that way. Was it hard? Yes. Was it worth it? I believe so. Not only did I pick up a valuable new skill, I assimilated into their culture and learned the nuanced differences between us. It was highly rewarding.
  - mcphage 10y ago
    > why would an American citizen choose to not learn the national language? English isn't our national language—the US doesn't have one.
    - leesalminen 10y ago
      I think that's a bit pedantic. If you plan on working in almost any field (maybe except farming) English is spoken.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    For the same reason why you have legitimate Canadian citizens who don't speak any English. If they grew up in part of the country that speaks mostly French, they will only speak French and no English. US has huge pockets of people speaking only Spanish and other languages, so it's not surprising that you have people who don't speak English.
davidw 10y ago
They are illegal because the system is so broken. There's a market demand for those people, and they're moving here to work, by and large. Just because something is set in law does not make it morally right.
- freehunter 10y ago
  >They are illegal because the system is so broken. They're illegal because what they are doing is against the law. Broken system or not, it's still illegal. >Just because something is set in law does not make it morally right. No, but it does make it the law, and breaking it is still illegal. Morals are grey, while law is much more often black and white.
  - jimnotgym 10y ago
    >while law is much more often black and white. Really? Why does so much time get wasted in litigation if law is black and white? In the case of an immigration law, was the law made in accordance with the constitution? What about the Geneva convention? Should you obey a law that is unconstitutional? What if it was brought in without due process. Doesn't sound black and white to me. [Add your own black vs white joke about white law enforcement and black immigrants here]
    - freehunter 10y ago
      Next time before you comment, you should look up what "much more often" means.
  - davidw 10y ago
    Rosa Parks broke the law too. No, it's not quite the same, but my point is that this is absolutely a case where the law is not working well, is not 'right' and ought to be fixed. There are a lot of similarities with MJ legalization: by legalizing, regulating and taxing, states like mine (Oregon) have hurt criminal enterprises and taken in millions of dollars in revenue, and brought a lot of businesses out of the shadows. It's a win all around.
- 10y ago
rrauenza 10y ago
It seems to me there has been a very successful conflation of refugees, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants. To be opposed to the last one paints one as opposed to all immigrants. I listened one day to a pro-trump Tawainese immigrant (now a citizen) explain why he was pro-Trump -- one of his primary reasons was illegal immigration. He felt everyone should go through the same process.
- jelliclesfarm 10y ago
  That's understandable. The path to citizenship is long and naturalized citizens feel very proud about it. It is not an easy path and certainly not without sacrifices. As an immigrant myself, it found it difficult to make that mental adjustment to willingly give up one nation as home and be adopted to another voluntarily. Its a choice. It's bitter sweet. It's complicated. Those who have had to make hard choices often cannot accept that their sacrifices are being undervalued when someone else can obtain that high hanging precious fruit so very easily and via shortcuts. I certainly can understand where this immigrant friend of yours come from.. not easy to reconcile all those complicated feelings on the issue of immigration.
true_religion 10y ago
Calling them undocumented immigrants is part of a world-view that sees free movement of labour as objectively good, and borders are archaically protectionist. To one with such a world view, 'illegal immigration' is illegal in the same way parking incorrectly, or crossing the street without an intersection is illegal----annoying but not worth arrest.
admyral 10y ago
Most can get on board with recognizing the difference between someone who just recently came illegally who might have a criminal record versus someone who is law abiding, has been here for many years, and potentially who has legal family members here. The worry here is the current administration's policy does not distinguish between these two and the goal isn't so much about safety, but is to report high numbers of deportations at all cost.
Bartweiss 10y ago
The easiest answer I know is that it's a problem with selective (and unproductive) enforcement. Lots of people immigrate illegally, and many of them stay at length, work hard, and build lives. The government pretty explicitly turns a blind eye to their presence. Then we change leaders, and suddenly responsible residents of 30 years are kicked out to a country they haven't lived in since childhood. Meanwhile, a great many other people in the same situation aren't. It's a bit like my reaction to marijuana laws. I think the law isn't very good, but that's just grounds for reform. What I think is immoral is seriously punishing 1% of people violating an unimportant law instead of lightly punishing lots of them. It's about limited or variable enforcement of the law, which encourages people to play a lottery where a handful of players get their lives ruined.
- admyral 10y ago
  It seems like America doesn't have an appetite for long term, sensible policies. We pass common sense legislation, fail to ever adjust them based on how they work in practice or when new information comes to light. Then as public outcry reaches its peak, a politician will come along to scrap the entire thing in favor of starting anew or propose some poorly conceived, overly broad solution to the problem. America is great at throwing tons of cash, our vast technical and industrial infrastructure, or military might at the problem. Not so much at utilizing the scientific method to determine a sensible course of action as other nations do.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    I think this is deeply, alarmingly true. The easiest example I see is the long list of policies which were assessed via some known value like inflation, but never pegged to it. As a result, they're grounds for new fights every couple of years when it comes time to re-assess them. I'm not even thinking about minimum wage here (which still sees fights over its existence) but inside-baseball funding for various executive branch positions and agencies. Similarly, the alarming number of laws with hard cutoffs (on salary, or employee count, or whatever) that create weird anti-growth, anti-work incentives. I think it was in a recent discussion of cost explosion (e.g. in healthcare or infrastructure) that someone pointed out that the US isn't over- or under-regulated compared to similar nations; it's just worse regulated. A disturbing amount could be gained by going through the Federal Code and just fixing the bits that every expert agrees are stupid.
jelliclesfarm 10y ago
Someone who is here on a work visa and plans to go back to their home country if visa isn't extended wanted to know why his children(one was born in the United States and the other came as an infant) have to leave the country when the parents' visas expired ..but undocumented children get to stay in the states. He said that his kids know no other home than California and think of themselves as American. I don't have kids so I really didn't have an answer. I guess kids go where their parents go..which is why undocumented children came with their undocumented parents. But it made me think that children are like property and they belong to parents until they are adults. But what happens after they become adults...whose responsibility now are the lives shaped by people who are no longer in charge. No easy answers. But only because we tend to become emotional about it. The law ..like rationality or logic..doesn't have and shouldn't have emotions. The answer is very clear but can we live with it or accept it?
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
I'm hostile about the deportations of undocumented/illegal immigrants because I think they're the first step on an authoritarian road that leads to deporting or killing legal residents and citizens whom the government considers "undesirable".

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.
  - leesalminen 10y ago
    > 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. That sounds exactly like a choice to me. You chose to take the easy route and communicate in a common language. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but absolutely a choice. Why did you choose that option? I lived in Chile for a while. Although many people spoke English, I chose to learn their language and communicate that way. Was it hard? Yes. Was it worth it? I believe so. Not only did I pick up a valuable new skill, I assimilated into their culture and learned the nuanced differences between us. It was highly rewarding.
- mcphage 10y ago
  > why would an American citizen choose to not learn the national language? English isn't our national language—the US doesn't have one.
  - leesalminen 10y ago
    I think that's a bit pedantic. If you plan on working in almost any field (maybe except farming) English is spoken.
- gambiting 10y ago
  For the same reason why you have legitimate Canadian citizens who don't speak any English. If they grew up in part of the country that speaks mostly French, they will only speak French and no English. US has huge pockets of people speaking only Spanish and other languages, so it's not surprising that you have people who don't speak English.

davidw 10y ago

They are illegal because the system is so broken. There's a market demand for those people, and they're moving here to work, by and large. Just because something is set in law does not make it morally right.

freehunter 10y ago
>They are illegal because the system is so broken. They're illegal because what they are doing is against the law. Broken system or not, it's still illegal. >Just because something is set in law does not make it morally right. No, but it does make it the law, and breaking it is still illegal. Morals are grey, while law is much more often black and white.
- jimnotgym 10y ago
  >while law is much more often black and white. Really? Why does so much time get wasted in litigation if law is black and white? In the case of an immigration law, was the law made in accordance with the constitution? What about the Geneva convention? Should you obey a law that is unconstitutional? What if it was brought in without due process. Doesn't sound black and white to me. [Add your own black vs white joke about white law enforcement and black immigrants here]
  - freehunter 10y ago
    Next time before you comment, you should look up what "much more often" means.
- davidw 10y ago
  Rosa Parks broke the law too. No, it's not quite the same, but my point is that this is absolutely a case where the law is not working well, is not 'right' and ought to be fixed. There are a lot of similarities with MJ legalization: by legalizing, regulating and taxing, states like mine (Oregon) have hurt criminal enterprises and taken in millions of dollars in revenue, and brought a lot of businesses out of the shadows. It's a win all around.
10y ago

rrauenza 10y ago

It seems to me there has been a very successful conflation of refugees, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants. To be opposed to the last one paints one as opposed to all immigrants. I listened one day to a pro-trump Tawainese immigrant (now a citizen) explain why he was pro-Trump -- one of his primary reasons was illegal immigration. He felt everyone should go through the same process.

jelliclesfarm 10y ago
That's understandable. The path to citizenship is long and naturalized citizens feel very proud about it. It is not an easy path and certainly not without sacrifices. As an immigrant myself, it found it difficult to make that mental adjustment to willingly give up one nation as home and be adopted to another voluntarily. Its a choice. It's bitter sweet. It's complicated. Those who have had to make hard choices often cannot accept that their sacrifices are being undervalued when someone else can obtain that high hanging precious fruit so very easily and via shortcuts. I certainly can understand where this immigrant friend of yours come from.. not easy to reconcile all those complicated feelings on the issue of immigration.

true_religion 10y ago

Calling them undocumented immigrants is part of a world-view that sees free movement of labour as objectively good, and borders are archaically protectionist. To one with such a world view, 'illegal immigration' is illegal in the same way parking incorrectly, or crossing the street without an intersection is illegal----annoying but not worth arrest.

admyral 10y ago

Most can get on board with recognizing the difference between someone who just recently came illegally who might have a criminal record versus someone who is law abiding, has been here for many years, and potentially who has legal family members here. The worry here is the current administration's policy does not distinguish between these two and the goal isn't so much about safety, but is to report high numbers of deportations at all cost.

Bartweiss 10y ago

The easiest answer I know is that it's a problem with selective (and unproductive) enforcement. Lots of people immigrate illegally, and many of them stay at length, work hard, and build lives. The government pretty explicitly turns a blind eye to their presence. Then we change leaders, and suddenly responsible residents of 30 years are kicked out to a country they haven't lived in since childhood. Meanwhile, a great many other people in the same situation aren't. It's a bit like my reaction to marijuana laws. I think the law isn't very good, but that's just grounds for reform. What I think is immoral is seriously punishing 1% of people violating an unimportant law instead of lightly punishing lots of them. It's about limited or variable enforcement of the law, which encourages people to play a lottery where a handful of players get their lives ruined.

admyral 10y ago
It seems like America doesn't have an appetite for long term, sensible policies. We pass common sense legislation, fail to ever adjust them based on how they work in practice or when new information comes to light. Then as public outcry reaches its peak, a politician will come along to scrap the entire thing in favor of starting anew or propose some poorly conceived, overly broad solution to the problem. America is great at throwing tons of cash, our vast technical and industrial infrastructure, or military might at the problem. Not so much at utilizing the scientific method to determine a sensible course of action as other nations do.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  I think this is deeply, alarmingly true. The easiest example I see is the long list of policies which were assessed via some known value like inflation, but never pegged to it. As a result, they're grounds for new fights every couple of years when it comes time to re-assess them. I'm not even thinking about minimum wage here (which still sees fights over its existence) but inside-baseball funding for various executive branch positions and agencies. Similarly, the alarming number of laws with hard cutoffs (on salary, or employee count, or whatever) that create weird anti-growth, anti-work incentives. I think it was in a recent discussion of cost explosion (e.g. in healthcare or infrastructure) that someone pointed out that the US isn't over- or under-regulated compared to similar nations; it's just worse regulated. A disturbing amount could be gained by going through the Federal Code and just fixing the bits that every expert agrees are stupid.

jelliclesfarm 10y ago

Someone who is here on a work visa and plans to go back to their home country if visa isn't extended wanted to know why his children(one was born in the United States and the other came as an infant) have to leave the country when the parents' visas expired ..but undocumented children get to stay in the states. He said that his kids know no other home than California and think of themselves as American. I don't have kids so I really didn't have an answer. I guess kids go where their parents go..which is why undocumented children came with their undocumented parents. But it made me think that children are like property and they belong to parents until they are adults. But what happens after they become adults...whose responsibility now are the lives shaped by people who are no longer in charge. No easy answers. But only because we tend to become emotional about it. The law ..like rationality or logic..doesn't have and shouldn't have emotions. The answer is very clear but can we live with it or accept it?

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

I'm hostile about the deportations of undocumented/illegal immigrants because I think they're the first step on an authoritarian road that leads to deporting or killing legal residents and citizens whom the government considers "undesirable".