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I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot. To which there is an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow. Instea

• happytoexplain 5mo ago
  In my experience, the phrase is just used to mean, "I don't hate immigrants, but..." (which, like the phrase "I'm not racist, but...", you are free to doubt case-by-case). I.e. it is not inherently inconsistent to apply the same disclaimer regarding a belief that legal immigration is too loose, too high, mismanaged, whatever; since that doesn't necessitate a belief that immigration as a concept is bad.
• georgemcbay 5mo ago
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• kibwen 5mo ago
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  • grosswait 5mo ago
    And I will stop assuming that people know what the word fascist actually means
    • koe123 5mo ago
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    • kibwen 5mo ago
      "Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past." ~ Jean-Paul Sartre, 1944
      • euio757 5mo ago
        This is a quite interesting paragraph, because you can rewrite it to today's extremist (both far left & far right): "Never believe that far-left woke extremists are completely unaware of the absurdity of their assertions. They know that their ideological mandates are fragile, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their moderate or conservative adversary who is obliged to use language responsibly, since he still believes in universal standards of logic. The ideological zealots have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by enforcing shifting definitions and linguistic traps, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by objective evidence but to intimidate, socially ostracize, and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent or weaponize moral outrage, loftily indicating by some accusation of bigotry or systemic harm that the time for argument is past"
• romaaeterna 5mo ago
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  • ilinx 5mo ago
    It’s sad that pragmatically adjusting quotas is never the loudest argument in the room. I’m in favor of greatly increasing legal immigration, providing paths for safe work and citizenship (when that’s the goal). I’ll admit that my idea of an ideal system is probably not palatable for many. But if we could start from anywhere near a sane baseline, I’d understand wanting to gradually find sustainable quotas that take all factors into account. I’m done with purity tests and letting perfect be the enemy of good. I suppose by “all factors” I mean all factors aside from exploitation and xenophobia, but I hope we could at least move the Overton window back that far.
    • romaaeterna 5mo ago
      Okay. Let's choose a small random country as a basis for your immigration ideas. Ie., Rwanda (pop 14.8m) or Israel (pop 10.24m). What is the quantity of immigration flow that you want, who and from where and on what basis of admission over what time period. What are your intended demographic, social, and political shifts that you say are going to be "not palatable" for the people living there now? In fact, please expand on exactly how "not palatable" you expect your plans to be for them.
      • cmiles74 5mo ago
        This strikes me as an unreasonable demand on the author of the comment. Part of the point of the current system was (at least at some point) to have knowledgeable people, armed with the available facts, figures and theories make some attempt at balancing the safety of the incoming people against (at the very least) their economic impact on the country. From there some rudimentary guard rails (quotas, visa type, etc.) would be set. I suspect few of us in this forum feel comfortable making these decisions from behind a phone, tablet or laptop. My understanding is that many of us, perhaps including the author of the comment to which you are responding, would like to see at lease some small, inching movement towards such a system.
• stego-tech 5mo ago
  I'm right there with you, and it's why I go to great pains to articulate the entirety of my position on immigration when I get into these sorts of debates. The simpler someone's position on immigration is, the less they understand it at length or the more extremist their viewpoints tend to be.
  • zulux 5mo ago
    It's wickedly complicated, isn't it? I'm distressed by anybody who doesn't change their position from time to time.
    • slg 5mo ago
      It's not that complicated, my immigration policy is "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
      • amanaplanacanal 5mo ago
        Mine comes to the same conclusion via a different route. I don't want my government telling me where I can or cannot travel to or decide to live, and I want all other governments to do the same.
      • neverbehind 5mo ago
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        • tadfisher 5mo ago
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• EnPissant 5mo ago
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  • jfengel 5mo ago
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    • EnPissant 5mo ago
      > I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot. To which there is an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow. Being "anti illegal immigrant" doesn't have to imply you let in whoever wants as long as they follow some process. You are taking away the agency of the people to select its immigrants.
  • lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 5mo ago
    If someone says they're not anti immigrant and then turns around to say immigration should be more difficult, there's an obvious logical disconnect in their worldview. It doesn't matter about illegal vs. legal: they want to make immigration more difficult, after claiming they are not against immigration. The comment does not claim there's anything wrong with the policy choice, just that the following policy preference betrays the initial statement as false.
    • sokoloff 5mo ago
      It doesn’t seem inherently contradictory for someone to think “I’m not anti-immigrant” and “my ideal target for legal immigration is at 80% of its current rate”.
      • throwawaypath 5mo ago
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        • convolvatron 5mo ago
          there are quite a number of issues with the situation as it was evolved. lots of people are intersted as a matter of policy in admitting that the US is largely functional because of immigrant labor, but relying in illegal immigration to fill those roles hasn't been great for the structure of the country or the laborers themselves. and to be clear this is not just harvesting the crops, and raisin the children, and building the houses, its also doctors and engineers and all sort of other professions. so there a huge need to have a difficult policy discussion about what to do without cratering the economy. but when you start removing civil liberties and running around in gangs grabbing random brown people off the streets and sending them to indefinate detention in the middle of nowhere, dumping people in Somalia, claiming you have the right kill anyone you want, you shouldn't be surprised when people start waving around the f word.
• gib444 5mo ago
  Do you believe mass immigration has any negative side effects, at all? Let's say hypothetically the UK increased its population by around 3 million since 2020, including one particular influx designed and implemented by Boris Johnson to suppress wage inflation, which had a direct effect on the lower end of the job market for the native population. You could also easily argue it led to a direct surge in popularity of the far right party Reform. Purely hypothetical of course... You'd consider that a good thing?
• cmiles74 5mo ago
  Even worse, with changes like this we are taking large swathes of legal immigrants and transforming them into illegal immigrants. It reads to me that a substantial number of green card applicants will now be subject to ICE detention.
  • deleted 5mo ago
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  • leoqa 5mo ago
    The cynical take is that with US companies expecting productivity increases via AI, they need to protect the US workers from competition via foreign labor. The current administration was voted in with an anti-immigration mandate so this is consistent. The practical reality is that you are not safe on any visa, it can be terminated arbitrarily by the state department and your recourse is likely expensive and timely.
    • thatfrenchguy 5mo ago
      I mean, the issue is that a large number H1B folks have vital skills for the US economy and that even just 20% of those leaving would mean every single big tech company would be in immense trouble
      • ben_w 5mo ago
        > even just 20% of those leaving would mean every single big tech company would be in immense trouble I'm not so sure. I think it would play out like this: 1. 20% H1Bs leave; 2. Those migrants are now in countries of origin, looking for work; 3. Many of the big US tech companies will already have offices in those countries, and those that don't can make new offices if they wanted to; 4. many, but likely not all, of those employees are now working for the same employer (or close enough), just in a different jurisdiction; 5. as none of these employees are physically in US hotspots, all the other stuff that happened in those hotspots because of big tech pay, suffers, conversely all the stuff which was suppressed because of those wages may (possibly) return; 6. two of the things that go down are the number of people transitioning from temporary visa to citizenship, and the available talent pool for the local-to-those-places startup and VC scenes.
• santoshalper 5mo ago
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• Georgelemental 5mo ago
  I hear it a lot too. It makes no sense. Obviously, if only the illegality was the problem, we could just declare all immigration legal and that would "solve" it. But it wouldn't, obviously, because that's not what people are concerned about at all
  • junofan 5mo ago
    What are people concerned about? If I walk into your house uninvited, that’s trespassing. Is that “solved” by declaring all entry into residences legal?
    • Supermancho 5mo ago
      The U.S. is an aggressively capitalist system. A person’s value is usually measured in dollars exchanged for labor. Legal immigration status is not a certification of capability, so it has little practical utility. In a capitalist exchange, it literally doesn’t matter. What the lower classes are concerned about is the value of their labor relative to others’, while the upper classes are concerned with getting a good deal by avoiding increases to the labor-cost floor. Bribes/subsidies and offered scams, have worked so far. If the federal government, as an institution, were genuinely concerned about illegal immigration, it would have a different set of tactics. Start by punishing the sources of capital (fewer people), then property owners (more people), and only afterward the laborers themselves (many people). What I see is a combination of class warfare and political theater, not a sincere effort to enforce the law. The law is incidental, made obvious by the exceptions the administration has had to carve out for certain industries.
      • TheOtherHobbes 5mo ago
        It's collective narcissism. Narcissists only ever express one emotion - aggressive contempt. So the destruction, incoherence, murder, and abuse are all predictable outcomes of a malignantly narcissistic regime. Out groups are always the initial targets for these movements, but as time goes on any form of dissent will cause narcissistic wounding and will be treated accordingly.
    • 5mo ago
• rubyfan 5mo ago
  It wasn’t ever about illegal immigration. It’s a way to make the position sound logical and tolerable. Now the goal post is moving to make only certain people legal.
  • p_j_w 5mo ago
    Trump equivocated when it came time to condemn people shouting “The Jews will not replace us” and the Proud Boys. Anyone who thinks it’s just about illegal immigrants is delusional.
• dmm 5mo ago
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  • lanstin 5mo ago
    People coming to live in your area, not your personal home, to work hard for opportunities, are in no material way like pick pockets. Your analogy is so extreme I am tempted to assume you argue in bad faith. The economic success of the United States, its simultaneous growth and flexibility and prosperity is directly caused by our heightened skills to welcome immigrants and make use of their talents and desire for success (compared to other countries with similar demographics). We are awesome at welcoming people into a modern society that values smarts, individual diversity, getting along with neighbors of differing backgrounds, hard work, risk taking, striking out on your own, the NBA, good home cooked food, fast food, and Taylor Swift, and getting them to enjoy these things also.
    • dmm 5mo ago
      I didn't say they were pickpockets. I was trying to point out the absurdity of correcting illegal activity by simply eliminating laws. I love immigration. We should have lots of immigration! But it should occur within consistently, fairly enforced laws passed by our legislative system. I get that our immigration system is arguably broken and that it's very difficult to pass meaningful legislation, but that doesn't mean we should just allow whoever is president to dictate immigration policy.
      • lanstin 5mo ago
        So the thing to analogize is that DHS is acting like a junior high school gang, enforcing ever shifting rules and norms capriciously for the fun of bullying to score points with the onlookers. The bullied folks are not analogous to pick pockets. We have laws, laws under which TPS is legal for ever, under which we don’t round up and export people without criminal records, laws under which people pay taxes and raise their families here; all of this suffering being caused by Miller is not for the effects of the policies but for the demonstration of cruelty, contempt for differences, and a distraction from the roll back of a middle class centric economy where hard work and education were a pathway to a good family life.
• JCattheATM 5mo ago
  > I hear "I'm not anti immigrant, I'm anti illegal immigrant" a lot. A lot of those people had no issue with ICE bullying and detaining legal immigrants.
  • cwillu 5mo ago
    Or citizens who look like a immigrants.
• cmiles8 5mo ago
  Somewhat ironically many of those most vocal about supporting all this are immigrants. Those that jumped through all the hoops above bar, paid their dues in a messed up system where they bit their upper lip and got through it, and have been extremely frustrated at others trying to game the system.
  • behnamoh 5mo ago
    I was one of them, and supported the idea of going after illegal immigrants. But now they're coming after me too, a faculty with a PhD, researching AI.
    • valleyer 5mo ago
      You really weren't paying close attention to their rhetoric, then.
    • muglug 5mo ago
      I’m also an immigrant. When I heard the crowd roar every time Trump said “we’re going to kick them out” I knew exactly what the crowd was cheering. Trump never used those moments to say “but America is a nation of immigrants and we celebrate their contributions”. He wanted to rile up a crowd while maintaining a fig-leaf of “oh it’s only illegals who are evil” You don’t have to have a PhD to understand the appeal and consequences of nativist populism — just the slightest understanding of history.
    • friendlyasparag 5mo ago
      But you obviously knew what they really meant to accomplish, right? How could you not, being a faculty with a PhD. And yet you supported them anyways.
      • behnamoh 5mo ago
        Because I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt.
    • platevoltage 5mo ago
• b0sk 5mo ago
  This was from the official DHS account -- https://xcancel.com/DHSgov/status/2006472108222853298 https://xcancel.com/DHSgov/status/2006472108222853298 What do you think they mean by "100 million"?
• snapplebobapple 5mo ago
  Point of order: that is blatantly untrue. Anti illegal immigrant has everything to do with ensuring the people in the country are known and allowed. It is completely uncoupled from legal immigration. To say an easy solution is increasing legal immigration is just saying lets leave all the security holes wide open and just make it so only the real bad guys use them because others have an easier time going legal.
  • amanaplanacanal 5mo ago
    You could keep the vetting system and still increase legal immigration a lot. Those are two separate issues.
    • snapplebobapple 5mo ago
      Thats the other way to say what i just said. Its not as good a way to say it for this specific issue because it doesn't hilight the differences that matter to this particular discussion
• simonsarris 5mo ago
  Many people hold one or more of the following positions: 1. Illegal immigration is bad, and we should do more to reduce it. 2. Immigration (any kind) is too numerous. Eg someone could say "Nashua, New Hampshire is now 17.2% foreign born and I think that is too high." Within 2. there are multiple separate reasons to have the position. One could think that its bad for assimilation, or one could be upset that the Nashua school system's budget increases are almost completely due to having to hire more ELL staff to accommodate the rapid rise in non-English speakers in a school system that used to be almost entirely English speakers. I'm sure there are more complicated examples but I hope that one is easy to understand. 3. Immigration (any kind) is used to lower wages of the working and middle class via labor and program abuses. At the low end, this used to be a leftist talking point (the kind Bernie Sanders once talked about). At the high end, it is grousing about H1B abuses. Despite many agreeing that th program has large abuses, H1Bs are legal immigrants. Your idea of an "easy solution" doesn't remotely correspond to a solution for people who think #2 or #3. Even for #1, someone who dislikes illegal immigration does not necessarily want more legal immigration, though that used to be a very common view (eg, Bill Clinton in the 1990s, I think George Bush too). If a person believes #3, increasing the number of legal immigrants may simply increase the corresponding abuses. n.b. the text above is descriptive, not normative.
• thisisit 5mo ago
  Its not about immigration at all. It is about creating a "us vs them" tribal narrative. That's why people defend even US citizens being harassed under this administration. And the justification is because they might hold a different PoV. The irony is that if anyone thinks they are going to solve this problem - I have a bridge to sell. If GoP solves this then they are going to lose of the biggest talking points in next elections. I can see this being challenged and drama played out for long time saying "other side" is not letting them move forward with it. All the while the "extraordinary" Green Card will actually be "ordinary" - done by greasing POTUS palms. Because POTUS and his supporters are hell bent on turning America into a third world low trust country.
• tstrimple 5mo ago
  This pattern plays out across so many things conservatives say. It was never about free speech. It was never about being civil after someone was killed. It was never about balancing the budget. Their anti-dei stance was never about fairness. And no it was never about illegal immigration. It’s almost like they lie constantly about their beliefs. To themselves as much as everyone else.
• mikelitoris 5mo ago
  It’s a smokescreen people use to claim it’s not racist. It reminds me of that south park episode with the cable company representatives with velcro pockets. “Oh you want to migrate here legally? Oh it will take 3 years and it requires an active employment offer at application time and on arrival? Oh no… tell me more”
• ern 5mo ago
  I know this is going to. be contentious, but US mainstream discourse seems to have completely eliminated the distinction between illegal and legal immigration, in the last 10 years. Everyone seems to be a "migrant".
  • postflopclarity 5mo ago
    US policy has also nearly completely eliminated the distinction, by making legal immigration close to impossible and ~arresting~ kidnapping people at courthouses who are there for their immigration hearings, then shipping them off to foreign torture camps.
    • didgetmaster 5mo ago
      It is so nearly impossible, that somewhere between a half million and a million people have done it every year for the past few decades (including last year).
      • postflopclarity 5mo ago
        correct. that number is a small fraction of the backlog. it's a big country.
  • Fraterkes 5mo ago
    Nearly half of the workforce of crop farmworkers in the US is made up of "illegal" immigrants. The US food-supply relying on those people has meant that, in practice, immigration law enforcement is deliberately selective and self-serving. So, the idea of illegal immigration as a vice worth cracking down on and punishing has not been consistently applied by the people publicly condemning it (like this current administration), meaning there is a very real sense in which the distinction between illegal and legal immigration is not real.
    • happytoexplain 5mo ago
      "The people"? Are you sure you're not committing the common sin of conflating vocal people with most people? For example, I publicly condemn illegal immigration, regardless of which industry said immigrants are propping up, while at the same time recognizing that such industries need to be carefully extricated from reliance on illegal immigrants and also that the management of immigration and the definition of illegal immigration needs to be fixed.
• rwmj 5mo ago
  The aim is not to fix the problem. These populists would be out of power the moment the problem is fixed. They want to prolong it - even make it worse - because that's what keeps people angry.
• kadomony 5mo ago
  It's not. Trump has always wanted to revert back to a predominantly white America if he could achieve it. The government is racist and hides their racism behind shitty interpretations of our founding articles.
• seanmcdirmid 5mo ago
  They were always just against immigrants, legal or not. It was obvious back then, it should be super obvious now. And most of them didn’t really hate all immigrants, just those with a particular skin color. The MAGA movement was always racist at its core, no one should be surprised by the turns it has taken.
• jmyeet 5mo ago
  There are deeper lesson here. First, a lot of the immigrants that people complain about now are only immigrants because the US fucked up their country. Venezuela is the poster child for this. There are consqeuences to destabilizing other countries for American corporate interests. Second, companies like illegal immigration. It allows them to pay people sub-minimum wage in horrible working conditions and if the workers every complain, you just call in ICE to deport them. You pay a small fine for employing undocumented migrants and the next day hire a new batch. You probably even have avoided paying wages to the deported workers. Third, a lot of attention is paid to people who sneak into the country. This is the minority. Also, "entering without inspection" (that's the legal term) is a civil infraction (unless you've previously been deported; then it's a crime), much like a traffic ticket. You technically aren't a criminal if you do this. But the majority of undocumented migrants are visa overstayers. They get a legal visa to come to the US, often a visit visa, a student visa or a temporary work permit (eg J1, H2A, H2b) and just don't leave. And to answer your implied question, it's not about illegal immigration. It's about white supremacy and the exploitation of labor under capitalism.
  • JuniperMesos 5mo ago
    > But the majority of undocumented migrants are visa overstayers. They get a legal visa to come to the US, often a visit visa, a student visa or a temporary work permit (eg J1, H2A, H2b) and just don't leave. Yes, and that's a big part of the motivation for this policy of forcing people on temporary visas to physically leave the US in order to apply for permanent residency. It prevents people who get a temporary visa and plan to overstay that visa and nonetheless apply for some kind of pathway to permanent residency in the US from being able to do that.
  • nroets 5mo ago
    Do you have any proof it's "white supremacy and the exploitation of labor under capitalism." ? Why can't it just be xenophobia ? There's xenophobia almost everywhere: Just look at South Africa this year.
• bluegatty 5mo ago
  "an easy solution: increase the number of legal immigrants we allow." Not really. The answer is: have a fair, transparent and function system. Then - yes - you can totally 'increase' (or decrease) as needed. 'Increase a bit' likely the right thing to do - but it's a completely separate question. But throwing Green Card holders out is completely insane, grabbing people out of church and schools and putting them into detention without oversight is cruel and inhumane. The national debate is insane. Just basic, normal, reasonable policy and process. That's it. Like DMV level stuff. Then you can adjust the numbers one way or another.
  • echelon 5mo ago
    > Then you can adjust the numbers one way or another. The numbers need to go up. China, in particular, has an "elite overproduction" problem. We should be welcoming every English-speaking Chinese STEM degree holder with open arms. Anyone, from anywhere, with a STEM degree and a job offer from a US company, should be in this country. Period. America needs to be the leader of the knowledge workforce world. We also need a vibrant and wealthy tax base and consumer base. If we don't do this, China and other up-and-coming nations will increasingly start to displace us, which puts all of our workers at a disadvantage.
    • jatora 5mo ago
      America is the leader of the knowledge workforce world and that aint gonna change. We aren't getting displaced anytime soon. One look at the pay differential makes it clear where incentives lie
      • bluegatty 5mo ago
        "We aren't getting displaced anytime soon. One look at the pay differential makes it clear where incentives lie" This is a bit myopic, partly because it diminishes Chinese capabilities - they're definitely ahead in a few areas, notably battery tech, advanced manufacturing, and in some product categories like robotics, (arguably EVs) and they have demonstrated leadership in industrial capacity for many others, like Solar Panels, other things. They're less than 1 year behind on AI (admittedly, they 'distill' and do a lot of copying but there's legit Engineering going on). When you put that altogether, and the pace of progress, it's formidable. China does it with 'domestic talent' whereas US R&D and 'Tech Exceptionalism' would literally not exist without outsiders, who make up up to 1/2 of the primary innovations, companies etc.. Tesla, Nvidia, OpenAI, Google - so many critical people from Europe, Asia etc. None of the 'Godfathers of AI' are American (which I find odd actually). Europe in particular makes a ton of primary contributions which are leveraged by others. It's not a reason to say 'anyone from tech can be a citizen' but immigration has to be recognized as a critical ingredient, maybe the most critical.
• Larrikin 5mo ago
  Trump grew up when anybody not white legally could be treated as less than. He lost this legal ability in his formative years in college. Stephen Miller is upset he never got to experience that. Immigrants from Europe will some how get an exception depending on their skin color. Same goes for South Africans
• platevoltage 5mo ago
  I'm not anti immigrant, I just really care about paperwork \s
• SecretDreams 5mo ago
  They only want a certain type of immigrants. I know some that go through the process easy breezy and others that absolutely suffer. It is largely dictated by country of origin, outside of the normal checkboxes.
  • happytoexplain 5mo ago
    Everybody across the world only wants a certain type of immigrant. The salient difference is whether the definition of "certain type" is petty or not (e.g. based on skin color vs based on qualifications).
    • SecretDreams 5mo ago
      Narrator: it was petty
      • happytoexplain 5mo ago
        Over and over and over, the greatest mistake of both sides of all political debates is to obsessively portray the other side as represented by their pettiest voices.
• hibgymnb 5mo ago
  The reality is that people who say that are certainly anti-immigration, they just know people don’t like when they say that
• JuniperMesos 5mo ago
  There are plenty of voices explicitly saying that there are too many legal immigrants coming to the US under existing US immigration law, whose presence is not good for the majority of existing Americans despite not being illegal. E.g. https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-we-have-way-too-many-legal-immigrants-coming-country https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-we-ha... > And by the way, I want to make – I want to be very clear. I’m not just talking about illegal immigration, we have way too many legal immigrants coming into this country, too. 1.5 to 1.6 million legal people coming – Ilhan Omar came in legally and she hates the country. She’s a sleeper cell infiltrator of the United States representing Congress. She hates the country. She hates the west. She should be deported back to where she came from, Somalia. Go run for City Council in Mogadishu. The country is not enriched by people like Ilhan Omar.
• marcusverus 5mo ago
  Democrats actively encouraged more than 10 million illegals to pour into the country during the previous administration. They lied about it and downplayed it for three years, and then (when election season rolled around) they talked tough about their plan to "seal the border"... which was another lie, as the bill they proposed would have allowed illegal immigration to continue at up to ~6X the historical average rate without requiring any action whatsoever to "seal the border". When the American people vote for mass deportations, those were called "fascism" and the basic enforcement of immigration law is actively, even physically opposed. But an inconvenient process change has you clutching your pearls and crying "bad faith"? Yikes.
  • amanaplanacanal 5mo ago
    I'm curious what you think "actively encouraged" means here?
    • marcusverus 5mo ago
      The Democrat election messaging that caused border encounters to ~3X immediately after Biden was elected, obviously. https://archive.is/QKk0l#selection-923.73-930.0 https://archive.is/QKk0l#selection-923.73-930.0 https://dgcjnpzq7j07id.archive.is/QKk0l/41e225be79dbd90e86c6bba94b4eed4b96456d1c.avif https://dgcjnpzq7j07id.archive.is/QKk0l/41e225be79dbd90e86c6...
  • array_key_first 5mo ago
    Okay so? Just saying "buh buh immigration!" doesn't demonstrate why the immigration is bad, which was the posters point. Also, the fascism isn't enforcement, lol, and you know that. I hate people who try to be cheeky and dishonest and hope nobody is paying attention. No, I know you've talked with people on the left. The problem is pouring tens of billions of our taxpayer dollars into ICE while they: 1. Do fuck all to improve the economy 2. Cause violence in our cities for no discernable gain 3. Have already shot and killed numerous American citizens 4. Regularly violate civil liberties because they have zero accountability I mean, listen: you've won. We have the secret police, we've been deporting people left and right. Well... is it better? Did it magically fix the economy like dumbass Republicans told you it would? Or is everything still shit? Same shit as DOGE. "Ohh we just have to cut some stuff! Get those greedy Dems and their welfare state!" Well, we cut it. Okay where's my check? Right guys? Oh... or were we just duped. And maybe the reason you, and others, can't admit it is because your ego is bigger than your need for self preservation?
• tty456 5mo ago
  The "anti illegal immigrant" crowd ignores, or more likely supports, the systemic racism built into the current immigration system put in place by racist lawmakers throughout the country. This new policy is no different and is a trap to kick out and never accept back more non-white immigrants.
  • caminante 5mo ago
    How is a scheme systemically racist when >50% of 13M green card holders are from Latin/South America and Caribbean? You can't be serious.
    • skulk 5mo ago
      I'm having trouble taking your comment seriously if you think that one number is enough to disprove systemic racism.
      • caminante 5mo ago
        That's a strawman. Even so, you're "having trouble" acknowledging a singular fact that calls a claim into question? Is two facts the magic number? Three? Why is one insufficient? It'd be more effective to offer an actual reason.
        • skulk 5mo ago
          Demanding proof of systemic racism every time it's brought up is kind of gauche and just tiring. You don't have to believe that it exists, but it very much does. I know you're going to clap back at me and say "so you have no argument, got it" and yes I'm not going to present you with one. I'm just telling you the way you're arguing this is kind of lame and incurious.
          • caminante 5mo ago
            >I know you're going to... Well, I'm apparently not in the imagined conversation you're having. Seems insecure to pre-bake an out for a hypothetical. Never rejected systemic racism exists, but calling everything racist without substance (and accusing people of ignoring system racism without support) erodes meaning. I suggest reviewing the HN guidelines for comments. If you disagree with them, this forum may not be for you.
• BrenBarn 5mo ago
  I agree. I think there are ways to do that that could get more support than the way we're currently doing things. Imagine if we began processing immigration applications at a rate ten- or a hundredfold of what we currently do. Imagine if just about anyone could get in, barring things like people with actual serious criminal records, etc. Imagine if when you got in via that system, you got some kind of long-term resident visa, which required you to pay an additional tax for, say, the next 10 years. Also imagine that this long-term resident visa gave you a path to citizenship, on condition of permanently renouncing all other citizenships you might hold. In other words, imagine that becoming a legal immigrant was far less onerous in process, but slightly more onerous in official requirements. Such a plan could be framed as encouraging immigrants who want to "put down roots", and that kind of immigration is much more plausibly spun as beneficial, because people who move to a place to live permanently do not want it to be sucky. By making the process simpler but applying clear costs (e.g., extra tax), it also gives people an easy to way to demonstrate that they want to do things the right way. Also, making the process more straightforward makes it much more politically palatable to deport people who violate it (which will still happen). A large part of the "bleeding-heart" leftist perspective towards immigrants stems from a sense that many people who immigrate illegally do so because "they had no other choice". If the bar to legal immigration is lowered so that it becomes a live option, this argument is harder to make.
• Aniket-N 5mo ago
  It took us 12-15 years to get a GC (depends on how you count). People who fraudulently or illegally come in have had it easier. And I was in the top 1% earner, built things that everyone here on HN has used. I’ve contributed a lot and struggled to get recognized. People don’t know how much of a mess this is. They claim they want smart people to come to the US. The system isn’t setup for it.
  • sagarm 5mo ago
    It's the Stephen Miller types that instituted a policy that throttled GCs by country of birth, independent of that country's population, as a way to achieve racial bias without explicitly talking about race. Miller's ilk is ascendant in this administration and their Court has blessed their approach to discrimination.
• frogperson 5mo ago
  Anyone who uses this line is a racist.
  • happytoexplain 5mo ago
    Some people.
    • array_key_first 5mo ago
      Well their either racist or they're too stupid to realize why it's racist. Which is... better? Maybe? But not by much.
• lovich 5mo ago
  Most of them saying they are anti illegal immigrant are lying if you dive into their numbers. It conveniently lines up with the legal asylum seekers. Usually when I find out someone’s making that deceptive claim and call them out on it they quickly admit that they don’t think asylum is/should be legal
• Jblx2 5mo ago
  [dead]
• bluecheese452 5mo ago
  Presumably the people saying that mean they like immigrants that meet the current requirements not a different set. Otherwise we could just get rid of immigration law and then everyone would be a legal immigrant.