This place used to be quite different, no?

[Noah Abrams]

My solution is three fold.
1: Strong border with enough manpower to detect every crossing. Build a bigger wall anywhere people cross.
2: Amnesty. Completely. If they are otherwise criminal in some other fashion, then police should handle that as normal.
3: Deal harshly with employers who hire newly undocumented and/or abuse any employee with subpar pay, rights, or standards.

Restrict entry, assimilate our already permanent residents, and directly attack employers who benefit from second class citizens.

(1) is not possible. Two thousand miles border. The terrain. There is no human and technological way to stop people in a meaningful, substantial manner.

(3) is where it is at. It is possible right at this moment with an electronic system. But it hasn't been done. Why?

Rs won't let it happen. Their agriculture lords in whose pocket books they are, they would be affected. Plus all other kind of rich people.

Ds won't let it happen because it will effectively kill illegal immigration. That means no more guaranteed votes as new ones are born here to them. Plus all the various social programs, more money, more government, more power and influence to Ds - all that is attached to illegal immigration.

So this posturing by both parties will go on and on and nothing meaningful will get done. There is really nothing any system (and the founders came up with a good one) can do when people themselves have lost virtue.

 

[Noah Abrams]

The same. It has been working for about 200 years now, I see no reason it will not keep working.
The complete answer is that illegal immigrants are not, and never have been, a problem.

Good, this is just about the best counter answer I have seen in this thread. I disagree with you completely but I highly appreciate your honesty and viewpoint.

 

[fskimospy]

You must live in a very affluent area. There are literally hundreds of thousands of streets where that is not even remotely true. I can invite you to so many areas in my city alone and if you walk down like that, in no time, you won't even have the shirt on your back or your pants. Guaranteed.

Haha, I would love for you to name those areas.

 

[Noah Abrams]

Our illegal immigration issue is basically like a bad parent who enables their childs bad behavior. The "I'm going to count to 3" parent that never does anything when they get to 3. And the child is not stupid. He learns this and continues his bad behavior. The parent who bails their child out of debt every 20 years because the wont put their foot down on rules and enforce them. Its en endless cycle because no one is willing to be a real parent and teach and discipline their child.

That is a good analogy. In those cases, the parents do not love the child. They only love themselves and do not want to feel bad themselves. It is about them, not the child.

 

[Noah Abrams]

The same. It has been working for about 200 years now, I see no reason it will not keep working.
The complete answer is that illegal immigrants are not, and never have been, a problem.

So now let me respond. For 200 years, America wasn't buckling under the various social programs and their cost. And I include the military and corporate welfare here too. What was true for 200 years doesn't mean it will be true for the next 2000 years. Things change, right?

 

[woolfe9998]

So now let me respond. For 200 years, America wasn't buckling under the various social programs and their cost. And I include the military and corporate welfare here too. What was true for 200 years doesn't mean it will be true for the next 2000 years. Things change, right?

We wouldn't be buckling under anything if the wealthy paid more in taxes, while the GOP just lowered them. Also, illegal immigrants are less likely to need welfare. If they are legalized, their job opportunities and pay will increase. And the ones who do work will be paying taxes, contributing to the welfare cost of those who don't. Currently the ones who work get paid under the table.

 

[ewdotson]

The paranoid insistence that liberals want as much illegal immigration as possible is silly and counterfactual. Here, let me quote someone on the topic, "President Obama has moved millions of people out. Nobody knows about it. Nobody talks about it. But under Obama, millions of people have been moved out of this country. They've been deported."

 

[Victorian Gray]

batshit leftloons raving like a loon
are either as dumb or dumber
The worst raving loons
loonbag shitshow
shit-show mindless circlejerk sewer that's evolved.
far left lunatic
senile and suffering mental illness

That actually made more sense. He always uses too many extra words.

 

[Jhhnn]

Ds won't let it happen because it will effectively kill illegal immigration.

So, Dems are arguing for more legal immigrants by legalizing some of the people who are already here but you claim we want more illegals.

That's FUD, & a figment of your imagination.

 

[Younigue]

(1) is not possible. Two thousand miles border. The terrain. There is no human and technological way to stop people in a meaningful, substantial manner.

(3) is where it is at. It is possible right at this moment with an electronic system. But it hasn't been done. Why?

Rs won't let it happen. Their agriculture lords in whose pocket books they are, they would be affected. Plus all other kind of rich people.

Ds won't let it happen because it will effectively kill illegal immigration. That means no more guaranteed votes as new ones are born here to them. Plus all the various social programs, more money, more government, more power and influence to Ds - all that is attached to illegal immigration.

So this posturing by both parties will go on and on and nothing meaningful will get done. There is really nothing any system (and the founders came up with a good one) can do when people themselves have lost virtue.

So if no one will do anything meaningful at all about it, is it possible you're the problem? Maybe something should be done about you?

 

[Noah Abrams]

So, Dems are arguing for more legal immigrants by legalizing some of the people who are already here but you claim we want more illegals.

That's FUD, & a figment of your imagination.

Buddy why do you want to keep giving more proof of your idiocy? So if robbery is made legal we can claim there are no more robbery crimes?

 

[ivwshane]

Buddy why do you want to keep giving more proof of your idiocy? So if robbery is made legal we can claim there are no more robbery crimes?

Well if robbery weren't illegal its kind of hard to call the act a crime.

Do you even read your own posts?

 

[Noah Abrams]

So if no one will do anything meaningful at all about it, is it possible you're the problem? Maybe something should be done about you?

So there is this theory related to Buddhism that each one of us is part of everything that is wrong in the world. That we are all one. The tree is in me and I’m the tree. I think it ultimately comes down to loving everyone but how can I do that when most of us including myself probably don’t love ourselves

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

 

[Jhhnn]

Buddy why do you want to keep giving more proof of your idiocy? So if robbery is made legal we can claim there are no more robbery crimes?

Yeh, illegal presence is just like robbery, at least in Trumplandia.

At some point or another, we need to forgive ourselves for letting it go as far as it has. We can easily afford to forgive all the decent hardworking people on the other side of it, too. 2/3 have been here more than 10 years. They've already proven themselves worthy of it simply by being law abiding residents for so long. When it comes to people like the Salvadoran refugees it would be utterly immoral & dishonorable to strip them of their legal status after all these years. It's much the same with the Dreamers.

If you think that's unreasonable, then tell us what would be reasonable. Tell us how we can best integrate them into America. You've already acknowledged that they won't be leaving voluntarily nor will they be deported en masse, so tell us how else to accomplish what we need to accomplish to form a more perfect Union & to insure domestic tranquillity.

So far, you got nuthin' but spite & I doubt that will change.

 

[Younigue]

So there is this theory related to Buddhism that each one of us is part of everything that is wrong in the world. That we are all one. The tree is in me and I’m the tree. I think it ultimately comes down to loving everyone but how can I do that when most of us including myself probably don’t love ourselves

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone
I have become comfortably numb

By that same theory we are everything that is right in the world. We're meant to aspire to that and not give in to hurting others to protect our own stuff.

Comfortably numb does not mean be cruel, if anything it means you should sit back and watch it all unfold and balance your opinions. It is not balanced to take the only home someone has known from them OR make that home uninhabitable.

You've said many things in this thread that has convinced me you aren't honestly a cruel person but you are stuck in a there's just not enough mindset. There is enough. It's mismanaged, hoarded, poorly distributed but there IS enough. In your willingness to accept legal immigrants, I'm certain you can afford a generosity of spirit toward immigrants that don't even consider themselves immigrants but rather Americans.

 

[Noah Abrams]

You've said many things in this thread that has convinced me you aren't honestly a cruel person but you are stuck in a there's just not enough mindset.

At the risk of shameless self promotion, I have many many flaws but cruelty isn’t one of them. Every family member and friend who has known me for any decent amount of time has commented directly or indirectly about my kindness. And it may come as a surprise to people here, I’ve spent countless hours doing volunteer work for permanent status refugees from other countries in my city. It has been one of the most meaningful things I feel I’ve done in my life. Just to see how little they have, and yet have that contentment that eludes most Americans. Even the faces of their children are different somehow, somehow purer. Can’t put it in words

But I see my community falling apart, I see corruption everywhere (trust me when I say the entrenched groups of the left are so damn corrupt). I honestly don’t see the problem of America as left vs right. The wound and infection is now deeper than that

 

[Jhhnn]

At the risk of shameless self promotion, I have many many flaws but cruelty isn’t one of them. Every family member and friend who has known me for any decent amount of time has commented directly or indirectly about my kindness. And it may come as a surprise to people here, I’ve spent countless hours doing volunteer work for permanent status refugees from other countries in my city. It has been one of the most meaningful things I feel I’ve done in my life. Just to see how little they have, and yet have that contentment that eludes most Americans. Even the faces of their children are different somehow, somehow purer. Can’t put it in words

But I see my community falling apart, I see corruption everywhere (trust me when I say the entrenched groups of the left are so damn corrupt). I honestly don’t see the problem of America as left vs right. The wound and infection is now deeper than that

It's a lot easier to be cruel when you can reduce other people to an abstraction which is exactly what you've done all along.

People who work with undocumented immigrants say the same things about them that you say about legal immigrants.

Perhaps you'd care to explain what sort of corruption you see in the "entrenched groups of the left". Compare it to the callous cruelty involved in pandering for votes of xenophobes currently all the rage among the GOP.

 

[HomerJS]

So now let me respond. For 200 years, America wasn't buckling under the various social programs and their cost. And I include the military and corporate welfare here too. What was true for 200 years doesn't mean it will be true for the next 2000 years. Things change, right?

White people were the beneficiary of the greatest social program of all time. All that free labor and shit courtesy of all those slaves.

 

[Noah Abrams]

White people were the beneficiary of the greatest social program of all time. All that free labor and shit courtesy of all those slaves.

You are right about that.

But it doesn’t solve today’s problems does it

 

[Younigue]

You are right about that.

But it doesn’t solve today’s problems does it

And ensuring immigrants that have lived their whole lives in the U.S. don't receive citizenship doesn't solve the problem either.