Immigration Moderate Says "Yes it's an Emergency"

[G-Man]

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, known for being a moderate on immigration, says that the border situation IS an emergency after being deployed down there (as part of the Air National Guard).

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loc ... story.html

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Everyone knows the best way to deal with an EMERGENCY is to start a multi-year construction project and then bunk off to play golf for a week.

[LittleRaven]

That's nice, but as someone who lives quite near the border, I'm going to go with these guys instead.

Fifty-eight former senior national security officials, both Democrats and Republicans, including former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, issued a statement saying "there is no factual basis" to support President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency on the US southern border.

This is an incredibly dumb idea, for all kinds of reasons.

[Yukaphile]

When illegal immigration at the border is at its lowest in decades? Yeah, a real emergency all right. But if we can declare people fleeing their hellhole lives an "emergency," then we ought to be able to do the same for climate change. After all, it's gonna reach a tipping point eventually, and affect billions of lives.

[G-Man]

Yukaphile, illegal border crossings have increased markedly over the last year. People keep using data from the first year of the Trump administration to tell us that there is no problem. But border crossings have been up hugely since then, and the media ignores it.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/0 ... er-sector/

Little Raven, these national security officials are largely the people responsible for our illegal immigration problem. Under Bush and Obama, illegal immigration was encouraged to provide cheap labor for corporations and future voting constituencies for Democrats (once they can get that darn amnesty passed). These are not people making honest assessments.

[Deledrius]

Yukaphile, illegal border crossings have increased markedly over the last year. People keep using data from the first year of the Trump administration to tell us that there is no problem. But border crossings have been up hugely since then, and the media ignores it.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/0 ... er-sector/

Do you have a credible source for that claim?

[Riedquat]

When illegal immigration at the border is at its lowest in decades? Yeah, a real emergency all right. But if we can declare people fleeing their hellhole lives an "emergency," then we ought to be able to do the same for climate change. After all, it's gonna reach a tipping point eventually, and affect billions of lives.

The solution to that is to help improve other places, not want large population movements. It's entirely understandable why people want to leave, from the individual perspective it's the rational choice, but it doesn't do where they're leaving or where they're going to any good in the long run.

[G-Man]

Yukaphile, illegal border crossings have increased markedly over the last year. People keep using data from the first year of the Trump administration to tell us that there is no problem. But border crossings have been up hugely since then, and the media ignores it.
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2019/0 ... er-sector/

Do you have a credible source for that claim?

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

Note that October, November, and December of Fiscal Year X come from calendar year X-1.

December 2018 and January 2019 results are the highest in at least five years according to the table.

[Deledrius]

Interesting. The last several months look very close to the same time of year at the end of 2016.

[Yukaphile]

Then go through official channels. It's not a national emergency when immigration rates are the lowest they've been in years. And tbh, I don't trust your sources, G-Man. I'm sure you could find competing sources that say the opposite, though given the right-wing noise machine's propensity to rewrtite history to suit their agenda, I'm initially distrustful of anything that doesn't paint Latinos as a rampaging horde storming the border.

But again, if you want to think a few people trying to escape their misery back home is a national emergency, and judge them as bums looking for a handout, then surely you can't be so blind as to see climate change may be the greatest danger we've ever faced? And that that demands the same response? Or this whole gun control issue when guns kill more Americans than anything else. Guns in the wrong hands. So much for the myth of the NRA's "well-regulated militia." We've seen who they are. Crazy white guys.