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Let's not continue using propaganda numbers around undocumented immigrants. There's not 10s of millions of illegal immigrants. There's roughly 11 million undocu
by ryan_lane 1y ago
Let's not continue using propaganda numbers around undocumented immigrants. There's not 10s of millions of illegal immigrants. There's roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in total, and that number has _decreased_ since the early 2000s (when it was closer to 12 million).
A decent percentage of these immigrants are seasonal. A very, very small percentage of the total of undocumented immigrants have criminal histories. Focusing efforts on violent criminals is reasonable, but that doesn't meet the propaganda numbers from the current administration. Deporting tens of thousands of people just doesn't rally hate the same way.
Rather than spending time and money building concentration camps, building out secret police (ICE), and deporting people without due process, we could be fixing our immigration system.
Let's make work visas that allow migrant workers to work seasonally. Let's add paths to citizenship to migrant workers. Let's prioritize fast paths to citizenship for students, especially those with masters and PHDs. Let's introduce a point system to encourage immigration of the best and brightest from high demand countries, allowing them prioritized visas, PRs and naturalization. Let's fix the DREAMER situation by providing those folks clear paths to citizenship.
The reason the immigration situation doesn't get better is because republicans need it to be broken. They use undocumented immigrants as a group to target hate against, which rallies their base.
- aydyn 1y ago> The reason the immigration situation doesn't get better is because republicans need it to be broken. I try to keep an open mind but its very hard to take the debate seriously when you end with disingenuous points like this.
- UncleMeat 1y agoWhy'd they refuse to pass an immigration bill under Biden then?
- aydyn 1y agoDo you really think its a winning argument to say that, actually, its conservatives wanting more illegal immigration? Bizarre.
- UncleMeat 1y agoI don't believe that conservatives want more illegal immigration. I instead believe that conservatives would rather do violence against illegal immigrants than address the reason why people are in the country without legal status. We could end all illegal immigration in an instant. But this doesn't let the GOP stoke racial hatred and enact its vision of a police state.
- aydyn 1y ago> We could end all illegal immigration in an instant wdym
- ryan_lane 1y agoThey mean the same thing I was suggesting. Illegal immigration is a symptom of a problem. Immigration is too difficult, but we so heavily rely on immigrant labour that we allow it to continue. Most undocumented immigrants are here for work. If we change the immigration system to give them work visas, the problem mostly goes away. Some of them don't want to stay here permanently, and not even for the entire year. They come seasonally. Others would like to stay permanently, and offering them a legal path to citizenship is likely a good idea. I think it's not possible to end all illegal immigration instantly, but the vast majority is easily within our reach. It's worth noting that asylum seekers are not illegal immigrants, and the way the current administration handles the situation itself it what's illegal.
- ryan_lane 1y agoIt's not disingenuous. Republicans rally their base against "violent illegal immigrants". They don't rally their base on "fixing immigration issues", but on deporting people, which is effectively the same as running on law and order. If immigration issues are mostly solved, then republicans lose one of their rallying points. As someone else pointed out, this is exactly why republicans killed a bill that had support across the aisle. Trump was going to run on mass deportations, and it's hard to do that, when a bill was just passed, co-sponsored by your own party.