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Most people have the capacity to do basic math and know that we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country. You can blame that toddler's pare

Most people have the capacity to do basic math and know that we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country. You can blame that toddler's parents for making the decisions that put them in that position btw.

shadowgovt 7y ago
> we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country [citation needed]. It's certainly the terror gripping some percent of Americans these days that maybe we can't, but why? We're spending a fortune on deterrence. What if we retargeted for naturalization and education instead? Flattened the complexity of the process and increased the legal caps by a factor of 10 or 100? What's worst case scenario, and how probable is it? It's weird to think a country that is generating enough surveillance to trigger some of the other threads on HN doesn't have enough resources to track immigrants on their process to becoming permanent residents or citizens without caging them.
- malvosenior 7y ago
  Our infrastructure is already in bad shape, a bunch of shanty towns is not going to help. The same people that want open immigration also want free healthcare for all and student loan forgiveness. Who pays for all of this? Millions of American's are struggling, it's totally logical that people would look at this situation and say "why not help people who already live here before letting millions of more people pour in". The reason we don't help people who already live here is because we can't afford to. I'm skilled enough to make a good living but I'm taxed to the hilt and can't take on any more burden. Many others rightly feel the same way.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    It's logical that people react that way, but it's a fear-based reaction that fails to acknowledge possible solutions. For example, people who are working on the fringes of society as undocumented immigrants aren't paying as many taxes into the system because they legally can't, not necessarily because they don't want to. How much tax money is bad immigration policy leaving on the table? If you don't want your taxes to go up, you ought to consider advocating for making more undocumented immigrants into taxpaying citizens. Spread the burden. If one doesn't approach these problems as sorted and stack-ranked (i.e. "we can't help immigrants if we can't even help our own population"), solutions open up. Housing is not actually as big a concern as people make it out to be. Housing in major population centers is a concern. The federal government has programs to help immigrants establish communities around the country, including neighborhoods with more housing than people (which we have quite a few of as our population ages and people move towards the cities). Those programs, of course, are targeted to help documented immigrants; making it easier to be a documented immigrant makes it easier to minimize the risk of shanty-town glut. Historically, it's rare for a country (especially an empire, which the United States basically functions as de facto due to its sheer size and impact) to encounter problems that can't be ameliorated by more hands and minds. Barring people from participating in society when they're already in society doesn't make those problems easier to solve.
    - malvosenior 7y ago
      I actually think it should be easier to become a legal immigrant. Not "walk across the border and you're a citizen" easy but easier than it is. The fact is illegal immigration helps no one though and until there's legal means to come to the country, coming illegally is not a good idea and I don't see those tasked with stopping that as amoral. Remember this discussion isn't about if immigration policy should change. It's if Github is "evil" for working with ICE, an agency currently tasked with enforcing existing laws and policy.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        We're in agreement on the need to change immigration policy. On the topic of the morality of working with the current system: evil is something people decide by their conscience. But if a person feels the actions of ICE are evil (and those photos generate a real visceral reaction that is hard to ignore, at least in my conscience), refusing to perpetrate that implementation, facilitate its perpetration, and walk away if one's company does so and one lacks the power to change their policy is the moral option. We know the opinion history has of people who choose complicitness or complacency in the face of evil. We appear to be in agreement that the cruelty is the point---it's intentionally harsh and dangerous to the immigrants as a deterrant. When the system actively engages in cruelty, refusing to aid that system diminishes its ability to inflict cruelty. While I don't think it's true that evil would not exist if people did no actions, I do believe that a system architected to perpetrate evil (which I believe "cruelty as the goal" qualifies as) starts to break down if people don't support it. Those people wouldn't be in cages if nobody showed up to put them in the cages. No reason Github staff should feel compelled to help that process go easier for the people perpetrating it.
        malvosenior 7y ago
        We are in agreement that we should change immigration policy. We are not in agreement that "cruelty is the point". When I look at those pictures it doesn't cause a visceral reaction. It looks pretty much exactly how I imagine it would look. They're dealing with hundreds of thousands of people flooding across the border illegally. That seems like a reasonable way to house them until they can be sent back or processed. We're also not in agreement on who's fault it is that those people ended up like that. To me and many others, it is 100% their own fault. They took the risk and now they have to pay the price for getting caught. That's not cruel, it's just sensible. Advocate for legal change, don't break the law if you can't handle the consequences.

shadowgovt 7y ago

> we can't support millions of refugees flooding into the country [citation needed]. It's certainly the terror gripping some percent of Americans these days that maybe we can't, but why? We're spending a fortune on deterrence. What if we retargeted for naturalization and education instead? Flattened the complexity of the process and increased the legal caps by a factor of 10 or 100? What's worst case scenario, and how probable is it? It's weird to think a country that is generating enough surveillance to trigger some of the other threads on HN doesn't have enough resources to track immigrants on their process to becoming permanent residents or citizens without caging them.

malvosenior 7y ago
Our infrastructure is already in bad shape, a bunch of shanty towns is not going to help. The same people that want open immigration also want free healthcare for all and student loan forgiveness. Who pays for all of this? Millions of American's are struggling, it's totally logical that people would look at this situation and say "why not help people who already live here before letting millions of more people pour in". The reason we don't help people who already live here is because we can't afford to. I'm skilled enough to make a good living but I'm taxed to the hilt and can't take on any more burden. Many others rightly feel the same way.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  It's logical that people react that way, but it's a fear-based reaction that fails to acknowledge possible solutions. For example, people who are working on the fringes of society as undocumented immigrants aren't paying as many taxes into the system because they legally can't, not necessarily because they don't want to. How much tax money is bad immigration policy leaving on the table? If you don't want your taxes to go up, you ought to consider advocating for making more undocumented immigrants into taxpaying citizens. Spread the burden. If one doesn't approach these problems as sorted and stack-ranked (i.e. "we can't help immigrants if we can't even help our own population"), solutions open up. Housing is not actually as big a concern as people make it out to be. Housing in major population centers is a concern. The federal government has programs to help immigrants establish communities around the country, including neighborhoods with more housing than people (which we have quite a few of as our population ages and people move towards the cities). Those programs, of course, are targeted to help documented immigrants; making it easier to be a documented immigrant makes it easier to minimize the risk of shanty-town glut. Historically, it's rare for a country (especially an empire, which the United States basically functions as de facto due to its sheer size and impact) to encounter problems that can't be ameliorated by more hands and minds. Barring people from participating in society when they're already in society doesn't make those problems easier to solve.
  - malvosenior 7y ago
    I actually think it should be easier to become a legal immigrant. Not "walk across the border and you're a citizen" easy but easier than it is. The fact is illegal immigration helps no one though and until there's legal means to come to the country, coming illegally is not a good idea and I don't see those tasked with stopping that as amoral. Remember this discussion isn't about if immigration policy should change. It's if Github is "evil" for working with ICE, an agency currently tasked with enforcing existing laws and policy.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      We're in agreement on the need to change immigration policy. On the topic of the morality of working with the current system: evil is something people decide by their conscience. But if a person feels the actions of ICE are evil (and those photos generate a real visceral reaction that is hard to ignore, at least in my conscience), refusing to perpetrate that implementation, facilitate its perpetration, and walk away if one's company does so and one lacks the power to change their policy is the moral option. We know the opinion history has of people who choose complicitness or complacency in the face of evil. We appear to be in agreement that the cruelty is the point---it's intentionally harsh and dangerous to the immigrants as a deterrant. When the system actively engages in cruelty, refusing to aid that system diminishes its ability to inflict cruelty. While I don't think it's true that evil would not exist if people did no actions, I do believe that a system architected to perpetrate evil (which I believe "cruelty as the goal" qualifies as) starts to break down if people don't support it. Those people wouldn't be in cages if nobody showed up to put them in the cages. No reason Github staff should feel compelled to help that process go easier for the people perpetrating it.
      - malvosenior 7y ago
        We are in agreement that we should change immigration policy. We are not in agreement that "cruelty is the point". When I look at those pictures it doesn't cause a visceral reaction. It looks pretty much exactly how I imagine it would look. They're dealing with hundreds of thousands of people flooding across the border illegally. That seems like a reasonable way to house them until they can be sent back or processed. We're also not in agreement on who's fault it is that those people ended up like that. To me and many others, it is 100% their own fault. They took the risk and now they have to pay the price for getting caught. That's not cruel, it's just sensible. Advocate for legal change, don't break the law if you can't handle the consequences.