23 ms·

> How is living in limbo for a decade, with literally no single piece of paper identifying you as a human being is "cutting in line?" Because other kids who mi

> How is living in limbo for a decade, with literally no single piece of paper identifying you as a human being is "cutting in line?" Because other kids who might have liked to live in the US and go to a top university didn't get to. You got what you wanted faster because your family broke the law. I still believe that children who are brought here illegally should get a lot more leniency because they weren't responsible for their actions.

jshen 15y ago
You seem to be assuming that something is right because it is the law. I'm inclined to question that assumption. I could also make the usual snarky comment and say that by the letter of the "law" we owe native americans a whole bunch of land. Maybe even the land your house is on.
- haberman 15y ago
  > You seem to be assuming that something is right because it is the law. No, I'm assuming that regulating immigration is right because not regulating it has demonstrably bad consequences, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift If regulating immigration is right, sidestepping that regulation is wrong, just like driving without a license, running a bank that doesn't keep enough reserves, or building a house that doesn't have safe wiring.
  - anigbrowl 15y ago
    I'm not seeing what the negative consequences are. Are you referring to the fact that some of the immigrants were criminals and mental patients, who were encouraged to emigrate from Cuba and take their problems with them? The article you cite says the scope of this problem is debatable and may well have been overstated. Even if we accept this premise, however, the same situation applies within the United States. Many people commit crimes in one state and later move to another, where they may or may not commit further crimes. This is such a widespread phenomenon that there's a constitutional clause requiring courts in each state to give 'full faith and credit' to courts in other states, so that criminals can't escape justice by just hopping over the nearest state border. Are you suggesting that we should have interstate border controls, and require Americans traveling from one US state to another to obtain a visa first?
    - haberman 15y ago
      > Are you suggesting that we should have interstate border controls, and require Americans traveling from one US state to another to obtain a visa first? Are you suggesting that US borders with Canada and Mexico, as well as our maritime borders, should be as open as the borders between states?
      - _delirium 15y ago
        I'd like to move in the direction of eliminating them, yes. I don't see any reason to keep US/Canadian border controls, given that the relative parity of incomes means there isn't likely to be some huge, destabilizing migration. The EU's Schengen free-travel zone is a good precedent to follow on that, imo. Mexico is a harder case because of how screwed up the country currently is; opening borders tends to work better between relatively stable countries. But certainly we could start with Canada.
      - anigbrowl 15y ago
        I think you should answer my question first, since the existence of interstate crime is indisputable and this doesn't seem qualitatively different from the deleterious effects which you are citing in the Cuban example. But yes, I think we should be moving towards abolition of external border controls over the long term and dissolution of geographic borders with immediate neighbors like Mexico and Canada in the short term.
  - jshen 15y ago
    Now you're assuming that our current regulation system is right. I think it's clear that our current system is broken. It's far too expensive to enforce our current system, so we're left with laws that are ineffectual. Reality trumps abstract ideas, and I think we need laws that deal effectively with the reality of our situation.
    - haberman 15y ago
      > Now you're assuming that our current regulation system is right. No, I'm arguing that it's more right than no regulation. But I'm not that interested in debating with someone who puts words in my mouth.
      - jshen 15y ago
        You keep framing things in black and white and I'm trying to make it explicit. If you don't mean what I think you mean then I am reading you wrong or it's not clear. "I'm arguing that it's more right than no regulation" See, more black and white. I don't think anyone is suggesting no regulation. You aren't putting words in my mouth are you? ;) Why don't we create a legal process to let people that want to work here come and work. Why limit it so much?
    - rubashov 15y ago
      > It's far too expensive to enforce our current system Huh? Our current system simply isn't enforced. It's not a matter of cost at all. It's just expedient for an alliance of big business and certain political elements to allow a continued flow of criminal aliens. I mean, look at Israel. They enforce a much more restrictive immigration system at low cost with no difficulty. Or Japan, or Korea, or any of dozens of other nations.
- lupatus 15y ago
  The Native Americans lost it fair-and-square through force of arms. Moreover, much of North America was unoccupied, unorganized territory open for colonization by Western Civilization. Whatever tribes were able to hold out are today richly compensated - see the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    I really can't tell if you're trolling or if you're serious, because I guarantee there's barely an Indian alive today who sees it the way you do.
  - jarek 15y ago
    So just to get this straight, you would have no probs if China were to declare war on the U.S. tomorrow, win, kill off people living in America, and settle it with their citizens?
quanticle 15y ago
So, just because your mother put you on a plane with a complete stranger when you were 12, you should be thrown back to a third world country for a decade, even though your contributions to American society outweigh most native born citizens? Yeah, that's real fair.
- haberman 15y ago
  Are you replying to the right comment? Nowhere in this thread have I advocated deporting people who were brought here as children. I have advocated the opposite.
coryl 15y ago
Because other kids who might have liked to live in the US and go to a top university didn't get to. And some are lucky enough to simply be born in the US, and squander those opportunities anyway. I think its a bit funny to be citing "the law" as a grounds for which to argue this. It really has to go above and beyond what current laws are, into a moral and philosophical discussion of how people should treat each other. After all, in a time where there were no "laws", the settlers who landed in America pretty much raped the native population and took what they wanted. Where's their (the natives') justice? The entire south west coast (texas, arizona, california) was taken in wars from ACTUAL native mexicans. And now, a mexican can't walk across his ancestral land because of "immigration law". That seems kind of funny and wrong to me. I would love if everyone could look up the Rawlsian "Veil of Ignorance" - its something similar to the concept of the "golden rule". We're all human beings, this isn't just "ours", "theirs, and "yours".
- qohen 15y ago
  > I would love if everyone could look up the Rawlsian "Veil of Ignorance" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
- haberman 15y ago
  I'm not sure whose viewpoint your arguing against, because it's sure not mine. If we opened our border with Mexico, there would be a flood of immigration that would make the southern states a lot more like the Mexico they are trying to escape from than the US they are trying to escape to. This is purely a pragmatic argument. No one wins in this case (in the long term at least). It's also harder to provide for our national security if we can't control our borders (think how the borders were frozen for the few days after 9/11 -- no one knew what was going to happen next). Since having an open border would be good for no one, it must be regulated. Given that it must be regulated, it is both fairest and most beneficial if all immigrants go through the same procedures to get here. These are purely pragmatic arguments. Waxing poetic about history and philosophy is a rathole that won't actually help solve this problem. The Trail of Tears is a terrible mark on our history, but opening our borders with Mexico isn't going to give Native Americans their civilization back.

jshen 15y ago

You seem to be assuming that something is right because it is the law. I'm inclined to question that assumption. I could also make the usual snarky comment and say that by the letter of the "law" we owe native americans a whole bunch of land. Maybe even the land your house is on.

haberman 15y ago
> You seem to be assuming that something is right because it is the law. No, I'm assuming that regulating immigration is right because not regulating it has demonstrably bad consequences, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariel_boatlift If regulating immigration is right, sidestepping that regulation is wrong, just like driving without a license, running a bank that doesn't keep enough reserves, or building a house that doesn't have safe wiring.
- anigbrowl 15y ago
  I'm not seeing what the negative consequences are. Are you referring to the fact that some of the immigrants were criminals and mental patients, who were encouraged to emigrate from Cuba and take their problems with them? The article you cite says the scope of this problem is debatable and may well have been overstated. Even if we accept this premise, however, the same situation applies within the United States. Many people commit crimes in one state and later move to another, where they may or may not commit further crimes. This is such a widespread phenomenon that there's a constitutional clause requiring courts in each state to give 'full faith and credit' to courts in other states, so that criminals can't escape justice by just hopping over the nearest state border. Are you suggesting that we should have interstate border controls, and require Americans traveling from one US state to another to obtain a visa first?
  - haberman 15y ago
    > Are you suggesting that we should have interstate border controls, and require Americans traveling from one US state to another to obtain a visa first? Are you suggesting that US borders with Canada and Mexico, as well as our maritime borders, should be as open as the borders between states?
    - _delirium 15y ago
      I'd like to move in the direction of eliminating them, yes. I don't see any reason to keep US/Canadian border controls, given that the relative parity of incomes means there isn't likely to be some huge, destabilizing migration. The EU's Schengen free-travel zone is a good precedent to follow on that, imo. Mexico is a harder case because of how screwed up the country currently is; opening borders tends to work better between relatively stable countries. But certainly we could start with Canada.
    - anigbrowl 15y ago
      I think you should answer my question first, since the existence of interstate crime is indisputable and this doesn't seem qualitatively different from the deleterious effects which you are citing in the Cuban example. But yes, I think we should be moving towards abolition of external border controls over the long term and dissolution of geographic borders with immediate neighbors like Mexico and Canada in the short term.
- jshen 15y ago
  Now you're assuming that our current regulation system is right. I think it's clear that our current system is broken. It's far too expensive to enforce our current system, so we're left with laws that are ineffectual. Reality trumps abstract ideas, and I think we need laws that deal effectively with the reality of our situation.
  - haberman 15y ago
    > Now you're assuming that our current regulation system is right. No, I'm arguing that it's more right than no regulation. But I'm not that interested in debating with someone who puts words in my mouth.
    - jshen 15y ago
      You keep framing things in black and white and I'm trying to make it explicit. If you don't mean what I think you mean then I am reading you wrong or it's not clear. "I'm arguing that it's more right than no regulation" See, more black and white. I don't think anyone is suggesting no regulation. You aren't putting words in my mouth are you? ;) Why don't we create a legal process to let people that want to work here come and work. Why limit it so much?
  - rubashov 15y ago
    > It's far too expensive to enforce our current system Huh? Our current system simply isn't enforced. It's not a matter of cost at all. It's just expedient for an alliance of big business and certain political elements to allow a continued flow of criminal aliens. I mean, look at Israel. They enforce a much more restrictive immigration system at low cost with no difficulty. Or Japan, or Korea, or any of dozens of other nations.
lupatus 15y ago
The Native Americans lost it fair-and-square through force of arms. Moreover, much of North America was unoccupied, unorganized territory open for colonization by Western Civilization. Whatever tribes were able to hold out are today richly compensated - see the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service.
- philwelch 15y ago
  I really can't tell if you're trolling or if you're serious, because I guarantee there's barely an Indian alive today who sees it the way you do.
- jarek 15y ago
  So just to get this straight, you would have no probs if China were to declare war on the U.S. tomorrow, win, kill off people living in America, and settle it with their citizens?

quanticle 15y ago

So, just because your mother put you on a plane with a complete stranger when you were 12, you should be thrown back to a third world country for a decade, even though your contributions to American society outweigh most native born citizens? Yeah, that's real fair.

haberman 15y ago
Are you replying to the right comment? Nowhere in this thread have I advocated deporting people who were brought here as children. I have advocated the opposite.

coryl 15y ago

Because other kids who might have liked to live in the US and go to a top university didn't get to. And some are lucky enough to simply be born in the US, and squander those opportunities anyway. I think its a bit funny to be citing "the law" as a grounds for which to argue this. It really has to go above and beyond what current laws are, into a moral and philosophical discussion of how people should treat each other. After all, in a time where there were no "laws", the settlers who landed in America pretty much raped the native population and took what they wanted. Where's their (the natives') justice? The entire south west coast (texas, arizona, california) was taken in wars from ACTUAL native mexicans. And now, a mexican can't walk across his ancestral land because of "immigration law". That seems kind of funny and wrong to me. I would love if everyone could look up the Rawlsian "Veil of Ignorance" - its something similar to the concept of the "golden rule". We're all human beings, this isn't just "ours", "theirs, and "yours".

qohen 15y ago
> I would love if everyone could look up the Rawlsian "Veil of Ignorance" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
haberman 15y ago
I'm not sure whose viewpoint your arguing against, because it's sure not mine. If we opened our border with Mexico, there would be a flood of immigration that would make the southern states a lot more like the Mexico they are trying to escape from than the US they are trying to escape to. This is purely a pragmatic argument. No one wins in this case (in the long term at least). It's also harder to provide for our national security if we can't control our borders (think how the borders were frozen for the few days after 9/11 -- no one knew what was going to happen next). Since having an open border would be good for no one, it must be regulated. Given that it must be regulated, it is both fairest and most beneficial if all immigrants go through the same procedures to get here. These are purely pragmatic arguments. Waxing poetic about history and philosophy is a rathole that won't actually help solve this problem. The Trail of Tears is a terrible mark on our history, but opening our borders with Mexico isn't going to give Native Americans their civilization back.