Immigration - not the hill I want to die on
Trump's immigration/deportation exercises are getting a lot of pushback from the liberal community. Frankly, I find myself wanting to feel that this issue is really important, but honestly, I just don't give much of a shit about it. All countries have borders and many of them are far more strict about controlling immigration than the US. I don't see anyone actually advocating open borders, which I could understand at least for the functional consistency of it. Yet there is so much anguish over basic enforcement of our own laws about it.
I'd like to hear your honest opinions about the issue. Why do you care? Why do you think (if you do) that Trump's approach is unreasonably harsh? What is your objection to the deportation of an illegal immigrant (I find the euphemism of undocumented to be ridiculous) particularly if they have committed a criminal offense? If I overstay my visa in any number of countries, Japan, New Zealand, Australia come to mind, I will be rounded up and deported because my stay there is illegal. Why do so many find that whole exercise unfair if it happens here, but appear to accept how it is handled elsewhere?
Yes I am sensitive to the enormous emotional toll this can take on someone targeted by ICE. But the same can be said of the enforcement of any number of laws.
What do you all think should really be done about undocumented or illegal immigrants?
Comments
I’ll give your question a go.
I do not have the historical knowledge or understanding of world-wide immigration policies and practices. I have though, ancestrally, benefited from the generosity of America’s immigration allowances in the past, despite being narrowly selective.
Because the border between Mexico and America has been quite porous, permissable, and mutually beneficial I find the current targeting of Mexicans inhumane and incredibly disturbing to the innocent.
Are you there?
If you’d like to hear our honest opinions about it, you should give enough of a shit about it, to be present and respond.
Good Night and Good Luck.
I think I remember you from your photographs at Dkos?
Very Film Noir like. Am I right?
@janis b Sorry, I waited over a
Sorry, I waited over a half hour and went to bed. This is an online forum, not an instant message board.
If you don't know what you want, you deserve what you get.
Thanks Terry.
You're right about the site not being an instant message board. I was a bit grumpy yesterday, and likely unfair. I appreciate your raising the question, and the informed and thoughtful comments that resulted.
I worked construction for many years
... during the 1980s. Those were the early days of that particular wave of the illegal immigrant flood into the US (the "Reagan amnesty" - remember that?), and the effects were very apparent in the construction industry. (... and for those open-border advocates out there, an "illegal immigrant", by definition, is an individual who has elected to emigrate from his/her place of origin into the United States [an "immigrant", by definition], while ignoring/bypassing the basic legal requirements for border-crossing, entry, & documentation [i.e., "illegal", by definition], which every civilized country in the world attempts to enforce [for numerous reasons; we don't have to go into those, just now]. The above represents a mere examination of the definition of the words -- take it or leave it.)
So -- the construction industry during the 1980s (and continuing to the present time): Wages -- down (or flat). Employment (in the construction industry, for US citizens) -- down (a lot). Spanish-language skills -- up (a bit). I was a construction-site foreman (retail & heavy construction), and had to develop basic "construction-worker" Spanish linguistics in order to get by with the day laborers & semi-skilled tradespeople. Skilled trades -- plumbers, electricians, welders, pipefitters, etc. - no undocumented immigrants. The trade unions manage/d their membership & licensing requirements much better than the Federal government manages immigration; another reason to deplore the decline in unions over the last 50 years or so. (Which makes a lot of sense -- you don't want your house wired by a campesino who could vanish -- to someplace -- after the house caught on fire as a consequence of defective wiring --)
Wait a minute -- could there be a link among the legislatively-enforced decline in trade unions, the rise in illegal immigration, and the long-term fall in blue-collar wages??! What am I thinking --
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
I agree with you. It was documented at the time you
refer to that up to 30% of dry wall workers, for one example, were illegal aliens. For Americans with a high school education , or less, the impact of unrestricted immigration on these workers is very significant.
The impact on the working class has been recognized for more than a century and big business loves it both as a source of inexpensive unorganized labor and as a means to divide the wage earning class.
I do feel strongly that the USA bears responsibilty to those whom its policies have displaced.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
I agree with much of what you said
While I feel bad for the immigrants caught up in it, every country has immigration laws and I don't believe in open borders. In fact, most countries enforce their immigration laws much more rigorously than we do. What we need is comprehensive immigration reform coupled with programs that help our poor and working class citizens.
It's interesting that Obama deported more people than any President before him. The Left didn't say much about Obama but I think because Trump made it his signature issue the Left is up in arms. In last years campaign, I was surprised by the level of antagonism that the working class and poor people (of all ethnic groups) have toward illegal immigrants, who they view as being unfair competition for scarce jobs, housing, and governmental services. While I think many of their concerns are overblown some are partly true like the shortage of affordable housing in New York City. It is a losing issue for the left and will further erode the left's standing in the working class. While I am sympathetic to people opposing Trump on moral grounds they should be aware of the political downside.
bullshit FUBAR...
(this is a rant, warning, but it seems, it's what the author asked for, imo).
I don't know for how long the US has "accepted" so-called illegal immigrants, which I rather would describe as poor people from Latin America and mostly Eastern Europe in search of work, trying their luck in the US, The US employers just happily paid them less money than they would have to pay US citizens organized through their unions, oh and they liked that a lot! Basically the US loved to profit from the desperation of poor people in search for jobs. Unions couldn't fight against it, US workers suffered, because their pay remained too low as well, but not as low as those of the 'illegals'. They liked so much to hire the 'illegals', that they started to ask the 'legals (ie Americans)' to learn to speak Spanish to get a job in construction.
So, quite clearly, they "were proud of their values" to 'welcome' the 'immigrants' as the plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty reads:
Jeez, wouldn't you feel invited, if you are a poor guy from nowhere, never being able to make a buck to eat a decent meal?
Jeez, and how many of the employers closed all their eyes and were 'happily' hiring those poor guys from nowhere for less? And, uh, oh, those 'illegals' even paid US taxes. How 'legal' of the 'illegals'.
And did the US government mind about all the 'anchor' babies born and didn't they welcome the 'new US citizens' into their US territory? Not really, otherwise they would have changed those laws. And were not the US so 'humane' to grant all the family members to follow those brave poor guys, who made the trip to the US to find work?
Now, all of the sudden, all your previous 'generosity' and 'human values' welcoming the "the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" are all just mistakes, wrong and have to be changed?
All of this shit develops into a problem now in EU countries due to the 'refugee' crisis, which for many 'refugees' is a 'poverty' crisis. It is very clear that there is no way to 'vet' those, who come in, to find out, if they are people because bombs have fallen on their cities, if they were attacked in their country of origin by their own population for religious or tribal reasons, or if they come to seek a job, because they were simply too poor. I bet you, we folks in the EU (especially Germany) will hear some 'moral pillow talk' from our US friends telling us' that we should be more 'welcoming and humane' to 'our' refugees.
It was handled differently in the fifties and sixties in Germany. As far as I remember, Germany welcomed "Gast Arbeiter (guest workers)" with a programme on bilateral contracts. If you read the Wiki entry, it smacks of irony, if one puts it into context of the current refugee and asylym seekers 'crisis' from the ME and Africa. Especially the role of the turkish former 'guest workers' and how the US seem to get involved with a little moral pressure on the Germans back then to be more 'welcoming'.
Well, you won't prevent people from searching for jobs and earning money to feed themselves and their families. And they search for it whereever they believe they can find those jobs. You guys would too, if that would be your only chance. It's humane and normal. The situation gets abused no matter what you do, let 'em in and hire them for low wages (that is an 'abuse', just a softer one), or send them back or put them in prison (that is an abuse, just a harsher and way more expensive one). As if those people have not a 'human right for work to survive'. WE ALL have that right.
I don't know, who the author is, but the piece seemed to be another attempt to just touch on a 'sensitive' issue, like the other ones before lately, to arouse some 'revealing rants' from the readers here. Heh, Terry Hutchinson, you got what you asked for.
And yes, you can forget about the US unions, they are so weak they can't even accpet stronger union policies, when they are offered by German employers on German plants in the US. (Too lazy to look it up, the Americans refused to take over German-style union demands for that plant, as far as I recall.
US immigration policy is as FUBAR as FUBAR does. Of course you will have some openings now in private prisons and border control jobs. Bravo, exactly the fields the US needs more "skilled workers".
Which hill WILL you die on?
If not for your fellow human being, then what? Thanks for dropping the turd.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
oops, RA, I may have misunderstood the article
AND your comment. Didn't mean to drop something that stinks and is bad. I am not sure if you think my comment was unacceptable or ok. That's when my English is not good enough to sense what was meant.
I think for the issue to be discussed properly, one has to define what a refugee, compared to an asylum seeker, compared to person, who seeks permission to work in the US with specific visas, is today and what it was back in the past fourty to fifty years. And then one has to know, who of those is considered a 'legal immigrant'. Trump spoke about building the wall to 'keep illegals' out from Mexico or may be the larger area of Latin America. So those are not asylum seekers, nor are they refugees, nor are they persons, who search for work and living permissions inside the US by going through the steps to obtain legally a green card, before they come to the US.
Overstaying a tourist or other visa and not leaving the US is illegal. Many who seek jobs try through obtaining a tourist or student visa or any visa to get into the US. For those, who can't manage that (like poverty strikken and undereducated workers from Mexico and elsewhere, who have no skills and money to be accepted in US colleges and no money to 'play tourist'), they just cross the border somewhere. Those are the most desperate and I think it's an illusion to believe you can prevent those of trying. They fight for their life and livelihood and have rarely the means to do it in any other way. So they just start walking over the border, walk through the desert and sometimes some of them die doing so.
Understanding that many are desperate in their search for jobs, the US initiated the greencard lottery.
They kept a quota for each country of how many of those green cards were distributed through this lottery system. I remember that in the late eighties the quota was high for Germany, because the US thought they had too few immigrants from Germany. Their intention was to be 'fair', which was nice of them, but to me it seemed somehow unnecessarily 'fair'. They had less high a quota for people from Asia, as the US thought they had too many immigrants from Asia.
I think that all was a bit weird. I didn't understand the logic, because it was unclear if those immigrants they thought of having too many in the past, came in legally or not. For someone who looks to work and live in the US (without becoming citizen with voting rights), it is difficult to be issued a greencard legally. I think they had also quotas for certain professionals the US needed. In addition they had a completely separate and different way for Cuban refugees. They were accepted legally as long as they came to the US 'on dry feet'. If those refugees were picked up on the sea in boats, they were returned and not accepted. Also a "fancy" regulation.
All this could be handled differently. If the US had a tuition free (completely free) higher educational system in universities and colleges and a clearly organized educational systemd for trade jobs, also free of fees, they could easily educate their own folks and have enough skilled workers in all occupational fields they need. The unions tried and often did a good job, but imo, way too little. So the only source for an education in occupational trade jobs were through the unions. And the unions have been attacked and crashed so often, that one can't rely on them to get either protection or an education through them for sure, and for free in an acceptable time frame.
I remember that the Clintons, in the nineties, studied the German model of how people in Germany are trained and educated in occupational trade fields. Our system has a long history. One can say the system proved itself as working well. Strangely enough the Clinton administration may have studied it, but hasn't tried to implement anything similar here in the US. I never heard about it other than that they 'studied' it.
Anyhow. I didn't mean to drop the turd. (Googled the meaning of turd and it seems to be something shitty)
I would appreciate if you could clarify if you think the comment was unacceptable to you and basically a pile of impolite shit or not. To pull out a lot of statistics is quite time consuming, especially if often they are not comparable from country to country. I spent an over an hour on it, but gave up.
To answer the last question of the essay as of why it is ok for other countries to deport their "illegally overstaying their visa kind of immigrants" and not for the US, I would answer, because the US had never done so before, for decades, and now they want to change it. Neither the immigrants nor the reasons for the US to 'not have deported them before' have changed, imo.
What has changed is that there are too few jobs for the 'little people' available overall, due to automatization technologies and communication technologies that eliminate many 'unskilled' jobs. Some got outsourced to overseas to profit from low-wage countries. These are other causes than that those nice hard working illegals, who clean up any mess in this country and do the 'dirty' jobs that can't be automated and replaced for very little money. Them having come in illegal is not the root cause of not having enough jobs. It's the technology and its oligarchs that eliminated jobs, not the 'illegals'.
Mimi
I think RA's comment was to the author, not you.
oops, you are right, should have looked
at the comment number. Thanks for pointing that out, deja.
It's both an economic and a moral problem.
Moral, because in many cases the American government, through its policies of economic imperialism has displaced many people from their positions in the sustainable sectors which doesn't yield enough profit for global capitalism.
There is a definite negative economic impact to manual laborers in this country and to deny this is to avoid the obvious.
"Owing to the constantly increasing concentrations of leaseholds, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labor market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class. And most important of all! Every commercial and industrial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps, English proletarians and Irish proletarians"...Karl Marx, 1870
Uncle Whiskers was correct then and it holds true today. The USA has immigration laws and they should be enforced along with employment laws. If it's decided we can take in more aliens, I think priority should be given to people from those countries who have been displaced by American economic and military attacks on behalf of the global wealthy.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Exactly!
When we have caused the problems driving refugees to us, we should take responsibility for helping them, somehow. Even natural disasters - wouldn't we want someone to help us? It wouldn't have to be by immigration, but some real help, even like not flooding Mexico with subsidized manipulated cheap corn that destroys not only farmers' livelihoods but risks the original corn gene pool. We've sent children back to violent hellholes, resulting in deaths soon after.
On the other hand, helping distressed people should not be at the expense of our own working people. It should be supported by the wealthy, who have surpluses over their needs. We should in general treat our own 99% better.
On a third hand, we depend on (and abuse) immigrant workers to produce our food, among other ways. Not just harvesting field crops but also, here in Wisconsin, dairy farmers would be lost without them. And they work very hard. Incredible work ethic, from what I've seen. I once worked for two weeks in a canning factory with some Mexican workers, and, trying hard, I couldn't come close to keeping up with them. On top of that, they were extremely neatly dressed and washed everything they came in with thoroughly after their shifts. The rest of us were total slobs in comparison.
Thanks. You make several very important points.
The displaced people and - sometimes - their families want and need to work and work effectively at what jobs they are given. Also, I don't think illegal immigrants get workers comp or SS benefits, which I believe all workers should.
Those who control the political economy use their positions to use the world as a free dump ground; exploit natural resources and workers worldwide; and generally avoid paying for the misery they cause. If the USA, and the world, factored in the costs of monopoly capitalism and made those who own it pay, then people displaced can be cared for in their countries - Who really wants to be forced from home? - and perhaps even have the ability to keep the parasites out in the first place.
The Indian Maize culture in Mexico has sustained people there for a few thousand years and to allow a company like Monsanto to ruin the genotypes of the various maize varieties through their patented seeds and plantation type of monoculture verges on the criminal, in my view. The dumping of American subsidized corn onto Mexico has proven to be a human rights emergency and has been destructive to the Mexicans' culture of sustainability. For what purpose? Merely to accumulate more capital and create more waste.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Are you sure about this?
Most illegals are hired and the employers don't check, if their paperwork is "ok". Most are hired, pay their taxes and therefore should get SS benefits. Illegals can get a driver's license and a SS number as soon as they can prove they have an employer. At least that's what I believed to be the case. Correct me if I am wrong.
But I admit that this is an assumption and I have no proof. How many came on a tourst visa, took some class at a community college, got their SS number and their drivers licence. They take a little job at the side flipping burgers. Bingo.
Unfortunately I have only one example as "proof" which doesn't quite fit. Someone came to the US on a 'nanny visa'. A visa that allows you only to work as a nanny and only for those employers, who had the right to ask for a nanny to be from their own home countries.(those folks who work in UN related organizations and embassies and on half-diplomstic status) That nanny worked but didn't get paid a penny. The UN organization who accepted a nanny visa, didn't check if the 'nanny employer', which are their own employees, really paid their nannies. But the nanny could flip burgers, because she could get a SS number, and could get education at a community college. Life had other things in mind for her. She left her employer's house, returned to her home country, and then wanted to come back to the US on her own with a student visa.
It was granted in her home country by the US embassy, because she was "honest", as she told me.
Being back in the US, she got a greencard and later citizenship (not sure how that came about), through marrying someone, who was US citizen. So, the only one who abused his rights were her first employer not paying her a dime. Meanwhile the laws have changed a little. Those folks, who ask for nanny visas, get checked for complying with US labor laws, ie that their nannies need to get paid and get a SS number and with that benefits.
I've been led to believe that illegal immigrant workers
who are employed, and paid by a contractor, do not pay into SS or workman's camp and I think, legal or illegal, they should pay into the system and get the benefits of the systems..
I would like to know the answer(s) to this.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
hmm, you might be right, at least in this
article it is said that the day laborers who get work for a day or so, are themselves hired as contractors, so that the employers then do not have to pay payroll taxes and no taxes are withhold. Or they are paid cash.
On the other hand the article also says that many of those day laborers had long-term work contracts and I assume for those they might have had to pay payroll taxes.
Ahh, I think this article Unauthorized Immigrants Paid $100 Billion Into Social Security Over Last Decade explains it well. So, most of the illegals start out getting hired providing a fake ID or SS number.
[video:https://youtu.be/E2q9s7ZmFHw]
hmm, youtube gave me a warning not to share this video. I have no clue why.
I think it's worth to watch the whole documentary
Immigrant America: They Steal Our Jobs?
And sorry for not having understood the issues for the most part.
This coment and the ones responding to it
This comment and the ones responding to it come closest to reflecting my own opinions. For some time now, employers in certain segments of the economy have benefited from cheap foreign labor, much of which was illegal and the United States government has abetted it by looking the other way.
We (the United States) is the single greatest contributor to the current refugee/immigration situation world wide through our military aggression and policies of regime change all over the world and through our resource extraction in third world countries.
We cannot have it both ways in the United States. And yet we expect desperate people to either remain in the situation that we created or for other countries to absorb them.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Global capital demands that its capital continue to
be moved at the speed of light - a keyboard stroke. But, labor cannot respond in anywhere near that speed. Labor's response is both extremely slow but also wrenching and dangerous.
Unfortunately, we cannot survive with this system in place and getting stronger - the planet cannot handle it and remain a home for the flora & fauna, including us.
The financialization stage of global capital is particularly injurious to the biosphere and to opportunities for work for wage earners. The global labor arbitrage ensures the lowest paid and least protectored get to work. The owners of the global society are more and more divorced from production the greater the financialization becomes as a % of world output. In 1957, manufacturing accounted for 27% of GDP while Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate(FIRE) accounted for 13%. By 2008 the situation turned to manufacturing at 12% and FIRE rising to 20%. As we have come to realize FIRE is mostly waste in that next to nothing usable is produced and the great % of FIRE induces a series of bubbles from which insiders can profit and the rest of us have part of our wealth appropriated to pay for the cleanup.
This is the essence of neoliberalism which has been actively promoted under the presidencies of Clinton, Bush and Obama.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Another great comment
In the past, I have tried to explain to friends and family why the financial sector is a drag upon the rest of the economy, but I have never been particularly successful. Your explanation above is clear and concise. Thanks.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
You are certainly welcome, GG.
Financial speculation by the biggest banks is a well known evil in the world. It produces nothing of value; but worse, it damages the world's economy while enjoying "too big to fail" status.
In 1995 the six largest Speculative Banks - Citi, Morgan Stanley, BoA, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, had assets equal to 17% of American GDP. In 2010, this percentage had risen to 64%. This concentration of unrestrained speculative wealth easily can be positioned to wreck havoc with a country's economy, first by inflating the value of the country's currency & stock market, and then pulling out their capital to crash the values - Big Capital makes money going in and coming out.
Then there's the opaque financial instruments which get AAA ratings from the compromised rating companies to sucker in the unwary investors. The banks do okay; the investors lose.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Not my hill either...
There are several good arguments in comments that should be their own stand-alone issue. We need to quit making refugees just like we need to quit making criminals. Unfortunately, both are casualties of the American economy. The Obama/Trump deportations are also a victim of the US economy. Seems we have a theme here. Money, money, money - nothing is sacrosanct when it comes to the .01% making a buck.
The hills I would choose are ending the wars and income equality. The reason Bernie was so successful was because his platform was of the biggest benefit to all. He didn't get involved in identity politics, which is all the left led by neoliberals wants to do.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Beautifully succinct!
Perfect!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
@dkmich The hill to die on is
The hill to die on is corruption. Because it doesn't matter what policies you want, as long as a bunch of fascists are dictating policy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Catch 22
There has always been greed and therefore always a tendency to corruption. In our system, the ones who define what constitutes illegal corruption and what the punishment for it shall be are legislators. See where I'm going?
@HenryAWallace Obviously, cleaning
Obviously, cleaning house, in Congress and the courts, would have to be a major part of any anti-corruption movement, as well as creating several different new checks on corruption, not just the old ones coming from the legislature and the courts. New systems have to be invented to create accountability, because the old ones are now next to useless, having been wholly compromised.
The point of fighting corruption is not its absolute elimination; that's as impossible as eliminating all toxic bacteria within your body. But there's a difference between having some toxic bacteria in your body and sepsis. The problem here is not that corruption exists; it's that corruption is currently the most powerful force in the system, to the point that, in many cases, the system doesn't even pay lip service or genuflect to the law anymore.
Bottom line: if we can't fight corruption effectively there's no point in fighting at all. We get very het up about policy. But if you've got a system where policy decisions are habitually made on the basis of "what do the richest/most powerful people in the room want?", then it won't matter what we fight for, or against. Immigration, war, civil liberties, wages, water pollution--doesn't matter how much we agitate on these issues, doesn't matter how right we are or how wrong the establishment is. If there's no way to hold them accountable, if policy continues to be directed by the corrupt, for the corrupt, then anything we do will be futile except as an exercise in moral witnessing.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It's not that obvious to me.
For me, this is the operative portion of your reply to me.
Assume I agree. How we accomplish this, specifically? How do you put something in place independently of courts and legislators? Since there is corruption, how do we clean house in Congress and courts without violence? What are steps 1, 2 and 3 we should be taking?
@HenryAWallace In order to
In order to answer that question, we have to come up with something we can do that will inconvenience them, or stop their machine from working. Thoreau's answer was to withhold his taxes. No doubt we could come up with others.
But the fact is, if we cannot get power away from the people currently running the system, it won't matter what policies we agitate for. That's the part that should be obvious. If we're not the ones in power, what difference does it make what we support or oppose?
You're pointing out that we have a low-percentage chance of successfully opposing corruption. That's correct. It doesn't change the fact that without such successful opposition, we have no chance of achieving our policy goals.
Put it another way: let's assume the corruption stays as is, and the people in power stay the same--how do we intend to convince them to support our policy positions? We've been trying to do so for over 20 years. What are our successes? LGBT rights. Anything else? the Lily Ledbetter Act? the Detroit bailout, which replaced unemployment with working at half wages? Better CAFE standards for cars?
Depends on how you view those successes. I view all of them except LGBT rights as weak tea half-measures that won't do much to achieve their stated policy goals. And we can't replicate the LGBT success, because the key to that success was the fact that Wall St didn't give a shit, a fact clearly signalled by the Human Rights Committee sending Lloyd Blankfein to be their official Congressional liaison. LGBT rights, luckily, have little impact on profit margins, endless war, or the police state. There are very few other issues anyone here cares about which could say the same. Most things we care about would change either the status quo in relation to money or in relation to military power.
This is really the dividing line in the movement. People can continue to push an issues list and use the same tactics we've been using since I was born, or they can confront the power relations in our society, and try to invent new tactics to change those relations.
I'm not saying we have a good chance of being able to succeed. I'm saying that there's no point in policy goals if you have no way of taking power out of current hands.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Economic boycott.
There should not be anyone in America still doing business with the TBTF banks. Not after what they did to America in 2008.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Trump isn't going to be stopping illegal or undocumented
immigrants. His goal is to demonize and offer up America a heaping bowl of red herring stew. Naturally, the racists among us are sloppily gobbling it up - mission accomplished Donald. For capitalist pigs like him, nothing could be better than allowing desperate people into the country for cheap labor. They pay taxes and best of all, have no voice in politics, law etc.
We should allow large numbers to immigrate simply because it's the right thing to do. Virtually all of the immigrants are refugees. Some political and war refugees while others are fleeing economic destitution, sickness and death- much of it caused by US foreign policy.
Everybody gripes
about mopping the floor, yet no one wants to turn off the faucet.
There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.
A sound immigration plan
Here's how you stop illegal immigration: 20 year minimum sentence in federal prison for hiring someone without authorization to work in the US. Any unauthorized worker who turns in the guy who hires her or him gets an automatic green card, no questions asked no exceptions. You'll issue about four of those before the hiring of unauthorized workers stops. No unauthorized workers, no illegal immigration. Any other plan is just blowing smoke. Our current system is designed to punish illegal immigrants while winking at their exploitative employers. Time to end that, and time to pay more for our fucking lettuce and grapes.
Moreover, it is time to end HB-1 visas and every other form of indentured servitude. Yes, H1B visas are indentured servitude because they belong to the employer and not the employee. You can pay a shit wage when an employee lacks the ability to walk. Understand that the H1B is more about Google and Apple being able to prevent their indentured servants from having the ability to negotiate higher salaries by seeking employment at the other.
As for visas, there should be two kinds: tourist and green card. What about U-visas and refugees? Those categories should entitle you to a green card. Anybody who is not here on vacation should have a straight up green card, and revocation of a green card should be subject to due process involving judicial review.
And yes, if you are here without a tourist visa or a green card then you should be deported (witnesses to crimes and people seeking asylum get to stay pending their green card application being decided of course).
Partially agree
So 1 person gets a green card, but what about all the others working for the company? They can't get unemployment or food stamps.
Also, who gets the 20 year felony? The owner? The head of HR? The HR clerk who processed the application? The CEO? Who?
I do think employers should take a hit, but don't know how. I'm sure the irony of how many of them who likely voted for Trump and actually employ undocumented people is probably lost on them.
Under the law, deportees have to stay out for 10 years. 10 years! But the seriously criminal manage to come and go as they please.
Totally agree about H1B visas. Claiming that we simply don't have skilled workers is a total bullshit lie. Our skilled workers are working at McDonald's so cheap ass companies can work endentured servants to death for what works out to be less than minimum wage. How about felonies for the ones who do that?
Co-conspirators.
Just like with any other crime, everybody in the company who conspired and cooperated to hire illegal aliens should be held accountable. If the CEO authorized it and the head of HR implemented it, they're responsible parties. If the HR clerk knowingly helped illegals circumvent the law, they're also responsible.
Ouch
The clerk might know it's wrong, but might also be afraid not to do it because s/he doesn't want to lose their job.
This is a tough one for me because I know people who are here illegally. I care about them, and am terrified for the Honduran and his family. They could die if they're deported back there.
I don't agree with you.
Like the wars on terror and drugs, the war on immigrants is one more way to justify and expand the police state. If for no other reason, you should care about that hill.
But if you don't like that hill to die on, there's so many others. Marijuana legalization, for instance. They're coming for the painkillers, man. They're going to work the people up into a fever pitch and then deny them the thing that enables them to tune it out for a little while. Good way to increase violence.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I state some considerations,
without making an express judgment about any of them, except for the last two. However, full disclosure: I am not much of a nationalist. On the other hand, some of my ancestors jumped through hoops and worked for years to get other family members here legally when our immigration laws were very tough. So, maybe I can see more than one side.
First, regardless of what our laws are, we do have, if not open, then extremely porous borders, just as a reality. Other countries that are smaller may be better able to enforce their policies about "guests." We somehow never managed it.
It's a political issue. Within the last century or more, the majority of immigrants, especially immigrants of color, have tended to vote Democratic, if and when they ever become eligible to vote. And, even if the undocumented immigrant never gets to vote, immigrants who did become citizens may resent, and vote against, those who are punitive to undocumented immigrants.
It's a financial issue. Undocumented immigrants tend to get taken advantage of by employers who pay them low wages and pay them "under the table." That means they are not getting payroll taxes taken out of their salary. And, they are not paying income taxes (though they are paying sales taxes and other kinds of taxes.) At the same time, emergency rooms are legally obligated to treat them, their kids can attend public schools supported by taxes, etc. However, citizens who are desperate for work get paid under the table, too. And undocumented workers tend not to apply for SNAP or other government benefits. I'm sure there are many more economic considerations, but you get a general idea.
It can be a race issue. Someone who is okay with a white French or Scottish or Canadian person being here without documentation, but furious about Arabs and Mexicans, just may be a bigot.
It can be a humanitarian issue. Regardless of immigration policies per se, most nations make an exception for those who would be in danger if they remain where they are, or if they get deported back to where they were. We used to get defections when the Russian Ballet toured here. If sent them back to Russia, it may have meant Siberia or worse. Or so the news stories said. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Nureyev (defected t4o France)
Canada was once a sanctuary for slaves who had escaped the US and again for "draft dodgers" during the Vietnam "Era." I'm not mad at Canada for either of those things. To the contrary. I'm not mad at Russians for giving Snowden sanctuary,either. He was an adult and knew the consequences of his actions. So, I would not have a huge problem if he got sent here for trial. I've been kind of secretly (until now) glad he got sanctuary, though. I would not send an adult, let alone a child, back to Syria today.
I would be deeply ashamed if we did not give sanctuary.
The immigration issue is important, but...
you are 100% correct.
If Democrats draw a line in the sand here, they will die politically at that line.
The working class doesn't care. They never have, and they never will.
Trump wants the Dems to make immigration a do-or-die fight.
Just my opinion
I really don't see my (or most others) quality of life improving by deporting all the illegal immigrants in this country. If there's no improvement why bother. Besides, with all the illegal immigrants gone who will the Repubs demonize and blame for all of this countries ills?
I woke up this morning determined to drink less, eat right, and exercise.
But that was four hours ago when I was younger and full of hope.
Who suffers from illegal immigration?
According to the US Commission on Civil Rights, our black citizens do.
This country was built on immigration
and many of us are the progeny of immigrants, who may in fact not have come in "legally" as we now define that. There's also that little problem of the US destroying country after country in South America for profits for OUR companies - and now we want the people down there to live in the shit hole we've left them? That part, right there, is one of my biggest issues with this whole legal/illegal thingy - we've basically used illegal wars of aggression to ruin these countries along with our "free trade" agreements but we want them to stay in that mess and pretend we had NOTHING to do with that.
The other little problem - people seem to think there are no real skills involved in picking produce or slaughtering animals, would you like to try doing that for a living? Think you could keep up with the ones who've been doing that for fucking ever?
It is the blazing hypocrisy of the whole idea of illegal that pisses me off to no end. We are willing to use these people to do the shittiest jobs in this country and then we condemn them for it. Fuck that shit.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
@lizzyh7 Our history of openness
Our history of openness to immigration is an argument that just doesn't matter to me. Frankly that was then, this is now. Times do change. If we can't build an argument for liberal immigration based more on our current situation and less on the belief that we must continue because it is what we have always done, we will lose the argument.
If you don't know what you want, you deserve what you get.
That's fine
but I personally have a real problem with demonizing the immigrant. And saying that we should only look at the now and not the past is a huge part of our problem in a dumbed down America. Making the immigrant the scapegoat for all the problems in this country is bullshit, and treating people like cattle isn't something I feel is the right thing to do. Not to mention the use of a demonized group just leads inevitably to demonizing other groups, again, not something I feel America should strive to live up to. But hey, when not sure what to do, blame the illegal, its so much easier that way. And when that fails, find another scapegoat, there'll be plenty of them around and if not, why we'll make one.
Not to mention the gist of my argument is not that we always have done it, but the hypocrisy and downright evil of destroying someone else's country and then blaming them for running from the chaos. American Exceptionalism at its finest.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
@Terry Hutchinson Given that my great
Given that my great-grandfather got here without documentation, and so I wouldn't be here if not for an illegal immigrant, I can't really take your position.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
thanks for all the responses
I have read the responses carefully. Clearly the specifics of immigration reform and the stance that should be taken on those who are among us already without papers is not something that the left is united around. Which reinforces my belief that it is a poor cause around which to stake a left resurgence.
The most compelling arguments, for me, with regard to a path for citizenship for those currently here illegally is that deportation is inhumane. I do believe that, but, for me, it is quite far down the list of inhumane things done by our government. As to admission of refugees, certainly our actions have created the bulk of the refugee problems so we do have a moral obligation to help those we have force from their homeland.
However, I suspect that most people are like me. The immigration issue, and the refugee issue, is not one that impacts me directly. I am not, and never have been, passionate about it one way or another. My lack of passion about the topic seems to be closer to the rule than the exception even in here, which leads me to believe the issue is a loser as far as electoral politics is concerned.
If you don't know what you want, you deserve what you get.
I kinda agree with the OP
We have limited resources, maybe we ought to focus on defending children who either were brought here or born here but have no documentation. Fight for undocumented people, rather than known illegal immigrants.
Another thing, if they want to crack down on all the people who are here illegally, then accept that most of such people do not sneak across a border - they come in legally and then stay after their visa expires - and deal with that instead of building a pointless, expensive wall. Also, if they dropped the racism, it'd be easier to get broad public support: Latinos are an ever-shrinking part of illegal immigration whereas Europeans, Asians and Africans are growing.
Not Sure I Can Take Much More
Maybe immigration is something like irrigation.
You want a controllable flow, but not a flood. Since immigrants generally enter the workforce at just below the bottom rung of the economic ladder, how does their arrival affect the native-born people who are currently living in near-poverty? I think the over-all economic health of a nation would have a lot to do with how many immigrants it is able to productively assimilate. Perhaps a high rate of poverty, simultaneous with a high rate of immigration, might be an undesirable combination.
native
Here's the dirty secret about immigration/deportation...
If we were somehow able to corral all the illegal immigrants up in one fell swoop, this country's economy literally, and I mean literally, would grind to a halt. All those fancy restaurants we like to eat in, transportation, construction and all the service industry we rely? Many, many undocumented people at the helm. Why? Because the CEO's and company owners want to pay out the lowest price possible to their workers. They live and die by quarterly profits going up and having to make 3-400x more than the average worker; or else how would they explain at the next cocktail party in the Hamptons that they don't have their own private helicopter yet? The shame would be too great. Enter cheap, undocumented labor.
And especially for the real dangerous and grunt work. Take a look next time at construction sites who are shouldering the steel planks, or driving cabs on 12 hour shifts, or high up on trees cutting broken limbs down for our park services, or picking vegetables and fruit all day in the hot sun. They're the ones manning the dangerous machinery at all those clandestine meat manufacturers all over the South, churning up night and day all those slaughtered animals shot up with hormones, diseased and crammed into deplorable living conditions to keep up with the ever-demanding market that demands cheap meat, and then shipping out all that processed food to fill up our supermarkets or become the meat on all those fast food franchise 99 cent menus with nice advertisement pictures covering up any notion of where it actually came from.
A scumbag "businessman" like Trump is up to his eyeballs in this kind of "free market" cheap labor. They are literally the engine that run his cheeseball casinos and hotels. American businessmen use this wedge to divide and conquer the working class. They're the ones completely and utterly responsible for the numbers of undocumented workers. And it's because their crony peers in banking have decimated, more to the point created Third World countries (through antics well documented in the brilliant "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins), and the conditions for which people flee from their own countries to come here to make a few pennies more.
It is a totally bigoted and racist dog whistle, to the dupes that voted for him (who will gobble down the red herring that it's immigrants, and not their bosses driving the wags down and destroying unions, who are the source of their problems.
Has anyone ever heard of a tall, blue-eyed Irishmen being deported for lack of papers? Practically non-existent. But there are plenty of them in NYC.
This is a farce. We're a nation of immigrants and revolutionaries, as FDR said. If you took them all out of the economy, the dirty secret is the American economy would collapse. It's the classic capitalist divide and conquer tactic.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
@Mark from Queens
"This is a farce. We're a nation of immigrants and revolutionaries, as FDR said."
A nice fantasy, but patently not true. If we were a nation of revolutionaries, Trump would not be President and HRC would not have represented the opposition. If we were a nation of immigrants, there would be much stronger support for immigration. That is just not what this country is.
Unless we can be realistic about who and what this country really is today, we can't even start the work of changing it for tomorrow.
If you don't know what you want, you deserve what you get.
If you're not an American Indian,
or weren't forcibly brought here as a slave from Africa, you were an immigrant/settler.
Everyone one of the rest of us (the majority) comes from somewhere else. Whether we are either one, a few or several generations removed from our ancestral homes, immigrant status at one time or another is a fact in America. For that reason the whole notion of "immigrant," to me, has always been used here as a political football to create an "otherness" about anyone who doesn't fit the false RW nationalistic fantasy of this being a while Anglo-Saxon Judeo-Christian country. And as many others have said, it's unconscionable that we don't take in immigrants from countries we've utterly destroyed, both militarily and financially.
We are most certainly a nation of immigrants.
As for the notion of us being revolutionaries, the American Revolution was a significant moment in world history. That can't be denied. The successive revolutions that followed in France and Haiti, were the some of the fruit it bore, with the latter being an extraordinary example of the oppressed revolting and throwing off the yoke of their conquerors, both revolutions being in the spirit of what Thomas Paine suggested were universal rights of man across all ethic, class and racial lines.
You may be partially right about the revolutionary spirit being non-existent or in lack of supply today, but only on the surface. If the current economic downturn isn't mitigated soon or we see a worse one yet, I think that dormant spirit could very well rise up pretty fast. There's plenty of revolutionary social movement activity all across the board, from Occupy to #BLM to FightFor15 to #NoDAPL. Problem is, most lemmings have been bought off and blinded by consumerism, and think an unending stream of cheap goods equals freedom.
Revolution doesn't have to be bloody; it just has to coalesce around a simple truth, that we're being duped by an ensconced duopoly government bought and sold by Wall St and Corporate America to keep us divided and conquered. Once Rep/Dem, Red/Blue voters begin to drop identifying with allegiance to the two parties, which will only happen when people shut off all MSM media, then we'll be getting somewhere in the vicinity of revolution. They look to the media to see their lives, the serious personal and financial dilemmas they're facing everyday reflected back to them, and aren't seeing it. People are left swimming in a confusing malaise and thus easily manipulated by fear and junk consumerism to think they're fine. Deep inside they know they're not.
I think there's plenty brewing for people to find their revolutionary spirit. And if Trump is the ugly face that takes the mask off of the charade that the US gov't is and probably always was anything other than a boondoggle and playhouse for the rich and their cronies, then that's a good thing.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
@Mark from Queens
Most of us here in the United States were born here. Obviously if you look back 1 or more generations you can find where ancestors immigrated. So what? I don't feel like an immigrant. Most of us don't feel like immigrants. We feel native born because that is exactly what we are. That is the reality around which successful policy must be formed. If you make our ancestral immigration the foundation of your argument for immigration support, you are going to lose the argument every time. The approach is silly and a non-starter.
Empty platitudes, about our revolutionary nature and some fantasy about collective empathy for dead ancestors who arrived here to escape old country tyranny, will reach nobody.
If you don't know what you want, you deserve what you get.
Humanity has always migrated. A lot.
In German it's Volkenwanderungen (without umlauts), though we don't seem to have an exact term for it. It's amazing that we can see national characteristics at all, considering how recently people have been where they are now.
We aren't handling it well, but there was a lot of violence associated with it in the past, too. We don't seem to have advanced much.