Immigration Thoughts

[pilight]

But I do not hear of protests on illegal immigrants in England or Iceland for example. . .

Neither of them has a long land border with a less developed neighbor and even less developed countries on the other side of that.

[Karha of Honor]

Then you have children that were raised here. But not born here. So they spent all of their formative lives in the USA. And had no say in being brought here. Deport or are they effectively citizens since they were raised that way?

Raised that way means...?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Then you have children that were raised here. But not born here. So they spent all of their formative lives in the USA. And had no say in being brought here. Deport or are they effectively citizens since they were raised that way?

Raised that way means...?

They sang star spangled banner every day.

[Nealithi]

I hope you don't mind. You raised a few points I would like to comment on. First I am concerned with the political system of undo what the other guys did last time. That is basically stagnation. And I also think the wall is not a totally bad idea. I think it should be on the border. Not inland by X feet or miles. That is ceding territory. And I think a physical barrier will make it easier to patrol by delaying the basic crossing attempts. Will it stop someone tunneling for a few miles and popping up inside the borders? No. But then neither will drone patrols, or even people driving around the border. You can't stop 100%. But you can make it harder. And with the illegal crossings slowed perhaps then a focus on applicants could be handled more efficiently. Instead of simply swamping the whole system.

Got no problem with someone poking at my thoughts just as long as they don't poke my brain physically, a person will only grow as a person with their views challenged and examined. Just no brain poking, I draw the line at that.

The magic reset button of US politics is definitely a problem at times, certainly you only need to look at something like Romney.... I mean Obamacare to see how (rightfully or wrongly, personally I was never totally sold on it completely, it had some good ideas but also some bad idea and didn't do enough to address the problems of US healthcare but I know there was a limit that could be achieved with intractable political opposition back by lots of money from big pharma) a new butt in the pilot seat can completely undue what came before. Any legislation to try to fix immigration by either side of the aisle with be hampered if not completely undone when the opposing side with the differing views gets into power, leaving things indeed stagnating.

I'm not really against the wall itself, its just a wall, a tool, and can when used right be helpful. I however am against what it represents, a quick fix packaged for campaign slogans and bumper stickers and not a true solution. Its like the calls for "ban the guns" (gun control is another quite hairy topic) after a shooting, right or wrong it does not fix the problem, its an aspirin for the headache from a stabwound, its only treating a symptom of the problem while leaving the reasons for the shootings to fester and get worse but is ignored because people think they fixed the problem. The Wall for some is the fix for immigration, not addressing extreme poverty, crime, our effed immigration system, our dumbass War on Drugs that makes crime so lucrative like Prohibition 2.0, and other factors that drive migration legal and illegal to the US.

If Duh Wall goes up it needs to be part of a comprehensive overhaul of immigration alongside trying to combat and fix some of the causes, the problem of illegal immigration can be slowed down if not virtually stopped that way. A quarter assed fix to immigration can I think be sometimes worse then no fix, can make it worse.

I acknowledge I'm looking at the situation as an armchair general with no real understanding of the politics or logistics involved, that my simplistic solution of attacking the root cause is probably fantasy akin to Atlantis and Half Life 3 but I just think how people go about it with band aid solutions is kinda crazy.

But brain poking is the most fun part! =^_^=

Kidding aside, yeah. I agree with the bandage metaphor. I thought the same thing when in Florida they told kids to use clear backpacks to end the issue with a shooting there. . . Really?

And Pilight. I see your reply. And good point.

[Nealithi]

Then you have children that were raised here. But not born here. So they spent all of their formative lives in the USA. And had no say in being brought here. Deport or are they effectively citizens since they were raised that way?

Raised that way means...?

They sang star spangled banner every day.

I was thinking pledge of allegiance and basically as US citizens. But yes.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Then you have children that were raised here. But not born here. So they spent all of their formative lives in the USA. And had no say in being brought here. Deport or are they effectively citizens since they were raised that way?

Raised that way means...?

They sang star spangled banner every day.

I was thinking pledge of allegiance and basically as US citizens. But yes.

Yeah I was just kinda responding to Slash in fashion.

[Yukaphile]

Here's my view. I'm sympathetic to wanting to cut down on illegal immigration. I've said elsewhere, I think the law is important, it keeps society from breaking down. But laws are merely checks of order, not what's moral. And I think since we are such a well-developed First Nation country, and have meddled elsewhere like in the Cold War, then we have a duty to give others less fortunate a helping hand. That is our original conceit. It's written in the Statute of Liberty. I think in that sense, we should create tighter vetting processes but shorter waiting periods. I've had a friend who's been trying to get here since 1996. Money is a factor, but also the bureaucracy. Honestly, I think we need all kinds of tests on determining who comes here. It should be, and this may be controversial, those who can pass a basic civics test (for a few reasons, should know the country you're going to, and also be smart enough to discuss this stuff) and have no criminal record (at least nothing like the two major crimes, murder and rape, of course). There's enough criminals and stupid people here, thanks. Give them the advantage to exploit the golden opportunity they are being given. Honestly, the whole immigration issue is a mess precisely because letting in people from all corners of the world means there's going to be differing criteria, and because there's always ways to improve and expand on the system, but everyone has a political motive, everyone has a racial motive, and so on. It's stupid. Like those I know who support a Muslim ban. Putting a ban on troubled countries is one thing, like Carter did. Putting a ban on a whole religious creed is utterly racist and religiously intolerant. It's also a gateway to shutting down immigration against other people you don't like, because we are sadly a primarily Christian nation. That was done to say, "Lalalala, only Christianity matters!"