(01-10-2020 01:53 AM)mrbig Wrote: This country wasn't founded on immigration through the merit system and I don't think it behooves this country to try and let merit-based immigration engulf other immigration. I am fine with the Statute of Liberty poem for the most part, so long as people are coming here legally. I am fine with more legal immigrants and more refugees. I'd rather have more people in the system than just as many total people with a lot of them trying to stay outside the system.
I do favor legal immigration over illegal immigration. In fact, I don't favor illegal immigration at all. I don't want to build a wall, but I do believe in employing technological means to improve border security and make illegal crossings much more difficult. That said, I also favor increased humanitarian aid in ways that are targeted to reduce the flow of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.
Tanq - I don't practice immigration law at all. I have heard things like what you suggest and I think the asylum system is not functioning well. Too many applicants that take too long in the system. I don't have the expertise to make suggestions on how to improve the system. I do think there are plenty of legitimate asylum requests. I also believe in improving our border situation in a way that treats asylum seekers and even people seeking to cross illegally who are caught in a humane and compassionate way.
I am sympathetic to the dreamers as it is no fault of theirs that they were brought here as children and largely consider themselves americans, so I favor something that legalizes their presence and gives them a quick path to citizenship. I agree that dreamers in particular who serve in the military should be fast-tracked even more.
But while a discussion on immigration is fine and dandy (and is something we have done before on this board), that doesn't change the way the current administration has handled immigrants from the south. And this discussion of what the USA's immigration policy completely ignores what the current administration has done. My point was merely that I consider this administration's handling of immigrants from the south to be a foreign policy failure.
True, this country had open immigration for a long time. At the same time, they had no income tax. So if we must return to the 1840's, let's do it on both issues.
Emma Lazurus was a poet. should we also take the writings of Whiman, Frost, and Sandburgs as policy guides? There is a great poem about the postal service - neither rain nor snow, etc. Should we codify that as policy?
It used to be that (a) we had lots of room, and (b) the government left the immigrants to survive or fail on their own. Neither is true any more. Hearkening back to the early nineteenth century for our guide is like planning to go west in a covered wagon. Worked then; doesn't work now.
I have extensive experience with the border and Mexico, and am part Hispanic myself. I have cousins on both sides of the border. One was a Border Patrolman, another a top cop in a major border city. Both now retired. But I have heard them talk on this matter.
I had offices in several border towns. In two of them, my office was actually on the Rio Grande. I have watched illegals wade the Rio and come up through my parking lot. Sometimes I watched them get chased by Border patrolmen. I have been through the immigration checkpoints both in the US and in Mexico.
If this country has a need a for uneducated and unskilled workers, then the ones wading the river will do just fine. I think we could fill that need by urging our own citizens to drop our of school in the third grade. But nobody wading the river has an engineering degree or is a pharmacist. People with education and skills can find well paying work at home, in the city where they grew up and where all their family and friends are. It's the others that you are wanting to come here.
Of course, all human beings should be treated well. I think during the latest crises, they have been. I think the media representations - and Democratic representations - of ICE agents as heartless Nazis who love mistreating children are both false and overblown. They are a bunch of people who were caught between competing directives and using overwhelmed facilities. I have broken bread with them - they are people just like you and me. About half are Hispanic themselves.
I agree about the special case of the people brought here as children. I would grant them permanent resident alien status, which allows them to live and operate here legally. If they want to pursue citizenship, there are legal ways to do that once they have the resident alien status.
For other illegals who have been here a long time, I would grant a temporary, short amnesty in which they would be allowed to apply for a legal status. When that is over, if they did not take advantage of it, zero tolerance.
Also zero tolerance for future illegals.
I have known illegals all my life. some very good people, some very bad, most in the middle. I have sold one a house, and owner financed it.
Yet any desire to stem illegal immigration is cast by one side as racist, and any action to do so is cast by that same side as nazi-like.
Not my experience.
