I just whipped this together this morning, so please don't think I'm personally invested in any of this. I post this specifically to invite critique, from my political friends and foes alike. Let me know what you think. My intent is to change my opinion on the below if good points are made by either side. All critique is fair game.
How the US should handle immigration:
1) We establish full border security, whatever that means. Obviously not perfect border security, but we try to make it so that it is more difficult to come here (and be successful here) illegally than legally (see my point 6 below in this regard). This could include extending the existing wall. This could include other measures, such as removal of benefits and punishing companies for hiring illegals like Clinton did in the 90's.
2) After step 1, we grant amnesty & citizenship to anyone born here, during their 18th year, who has lived here for 5 years, and who can pass the citizenship test and an English test. This is only for people who turn 18 after step 1 is established by some relatively objectively identifiable milestones to be negotiated. When they register for selective service, they can become citizens and register to vote.
3) We grant resident status to illegal immigrants who are here now; that is, we grant non-citizenship resident status to anyone who does not qualify for citizenship under item 2 above. If you are an illegal adult, you cannot ever be a citizen, but you will not be deported, and you are free to stay and work and pay taxes (and raise the next generation of Americans) if you want to do that. You're welcome.
4) We eliminate incentives for slackers to come here, such as government assistance to illegal immigrants not registered with the government by the time border security is established in item 1. We want people to come here to work hard. Frankly, I've always thought if someone was willing to brave the trip here illegally (and if that was their only illegal act), then at least they have some gumption, and we like people who have gumption. Welcome them under items 2 or 3 above.
5) We eliminate birth citizenship and replace it with a modified birth/blood citizenship. If you are a citizen (by birth or naturalized), your kids are (i) citizens if they are born here, or (ii) provisional citizens if they are born elsewhere, to become full citizens if they return to the US by a particular age and live for a period of time here.
6) In the end, as Americans stop having kids, we need immigration. Immigration is the past and future of this country. We should face that fact. But, we don't need immigrants who want to come here and change America or kill Americans as one of their primary goals. And, we have the right to choose who we encourage to come here. No one has a right to come here; we get to pick and choose. We need immigration from countries which will send people who will integrate. Diversity is not a principle to be pushed when helping people come to the United States. (Diversity is only a good thing when it comes to educating Americans how to deal with other Americans.) So, we expand the State Department budget to process people for immigration and citizenship in select countries which have large amounts of people who want to come here and become Americans by integrating into our society (but ideally have lots of kids because we aren't doing that and our economy needs that). Most Latin American countries would be good examples. For example, we can establish official immigration offices in Mexico for the sole purpose of expediting immigration from there.
6a) All immigrants should be required to pass a rudimentary English test, and all government services should henceforth be provided in English only. Private charities can step up and provide translations services...if that is deemed important enough, people will fund it. (I hereby invite Conor to contribute to Catholic Charities, which will be leading the way in providing help to all immigrants.)
6b) Require all immigrants to swear an oath to the United States...an oath which renounces any beliefs which require them to overthrow the US or kill American Citizens...an oath taken under the god(s) they say is their god(s) or with a statement that they deny belief in any god including the top 5 named gods.
7) These and all future immigration rules should be established to make the lives of Americans better. Those already here should be considered before people who are not here...just like other countries should take care of their people before they take care of any other country's people. That is the reason Trump won: he promised to take care of American citizens of all colors first ("What have you got to lose?") But, we can do that without Trump's bombasticism. We can do that without accusations of racism and xenophobia, without division of our country into race based voting blocs. The Dems or the GOP could step up and do that. It is their first duty to do so.
There are reasons why wealthy Democrats and Republicans and their Congressional stooges don’t want these things fixed.
1) Everyone should accept your basic premise that "we establish full border security, ...... not perfect border security, but we try to make it so that it is more difficult to come here (and be successful here) illegally than legally." How to best effectuate that premise should be fully debated and vetted, but without emphasis re extending the existing wall. The wall sends the wrong signal, is grounded in racism, and its costs far far outweigh the benefits.
2) Generally seems reasonable.
3) Not a bad idea for compromise re practicality vs rule of law, although I would carve out those who unlawfully entered as minors, yet who are now adults. Perhaps put them into a modified bucket (similar to your #2) but with a 7-10 year window, as opposed to 5 years.
4) Not quite following what you mean re government assistance. Again, I put children in a different bucket. Agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments that "We want people to come here to work hard. Frankly, I've always thought if someone was willing to brave the trip here illegally (and if that was their only illegal act), then at least they have some gumption, and we like people who have gumption."
5) Disagree. If born on US soil, welcome to America, my brother/sister!
6) Has anyone yet advocated that we want "immigrants who want to come here and change America or kill Americans as one of their primary goals." America is always changing. It is always evolving. We want diversity. It is our heritage. We have to be careful re favoring white immigrants vs persons of color or persons from "shithole" nations. Balance is good. It ought not be an SAT test. Scores of uneducated people from poor countries came here, and made us better, because they had character, because they loved their families, and because they had incredible determination and work ethic. We want those kind of immigrants in the mix.
6a) I don't have a problem with bucket #2 and #3 being required to pass a rudimentary English test, as they have lived here. But, for new arrivals, I disagree that they pass an English test. English is our language, but not to the exclusion of other languages. I love hearing families in restaurants or hotels speaking in their native language.
6b) Now you are sounding crazy. Immigrants are subject to US laws. Period. The same ones we have to honor and obey. Speaking of oaths, let's first start with President Trump and Mitch McConnell honoring theirs first. And, I don't care if immigrants believe in God. If US citizens need not believe in God, and given that our US Constitution allows freedom of religion (freedom to be an athiest), we cannot require immigrants to take some to blood oath and inventory their pecking order of God(s).
7) Disagree that immigration rules and laws should be established to make the lives of Americans better. That sounds a tad like we view immigration as "servitude." The immigration rules and laws should be fair. Fair to Americans. Fair to immigrants.
The less we make immigration an "us vs them" conversation, the more productive and constructive the reform can become. Trump fails miserably in this regard. Yes, it is why he was elected, but the rhetoric and messaging and cruelty has taken us 3 steps backwards, not forward.
1) Border security: We agree, except for the racism thing. It is a false political argument that the wall is racist. The wall is just one piece of border security. We have one already. Do you think that wall is racist? Trump's addition to the wall is a symbol of his support for the American worker. I don't see how that is racist, unless you believe only whites work.
2) Amnesty for children: I gave in to your side, so you agree, of course. Check
3) Permanent residency for adult illegal aliens: You will accept my compromise on permanent residency and not full citizenship. Check.
4) Government assistance programs should focus on American citizens first, and should not be used to entice people to come here. We have a lot of people in the US who should be able to get in line first.
5) Citizenship rule change: You disagree, but why? There is no inherent reason that we should have that citizenship rule. A lot of countries which have socialistish systems you idolize also have a citizenship rule I outlined. I see no moral or poltiical reason to keep our current rule. Can you offer one?
6) Diversity as a domestice principle, not an immigration principle: To answer your question, the Obama Administration sought quotas for all countries, even countries like Saudi Arabia, with a stated goal of diversity. As I say, diversity should be a name for a belief that we should be tolerant when when diversity exists. Increasing diversity should not be a goal of immigration policy. That is foolish. The reason socialistish countries in Europe succeed (one reason) is that they were not diverse. Homogenous countries like Norway are very easy to govern. The people are unified, and socialism works better in that context. Increased diversity is a destabilzer, and socialism usually leads to populism against a minority group since socialism does not increase resources, but merely reallocates resources. We should not be seeking to destabilize our democracy.
6a) You said, "I love hearing families in restaurants or hotels speaking in their native language." Fine. But there is no reason that our DMV employees and polling place volunteers should be speaking anything other than English.
6b) There is no reason we cannot require a greater oath of non-citizens than citizens. There are some reasons that we should require a greater oath of non-citizens. Immigrants are applying to become subject to our rules (and our rights). They are not subject to them yet, and we have the right to set entry rules. Nothing in my statement indicated a preference for religious or atheist. I just require them to declare themselves under the system they state they believe in. It is just an effort to stop crazy zealots from coming in. Granted, people can lie under oath, but it doesn't hurt that we will have video of an ISIS Muslim swearing to Allah he will not do what he did...or denouncing Allah on video. It will be a good thing to play when he kills American children. Then you guys can say, "See, he wasn't Muslim!"
7) You said, "Disagree that immigration rules and laws should be established to make the lives of Americans better. That sounds a tad like we view immigration as 'servitude.'" That makes no sense. Nothing I said implies servitude. Please support that statement. Having said that, I will say that there is a clear hierarchy. Perhaps that is what you meant. By hierarchy, I mean that we owe something to our citizens, but we owe nothing to immigrants. So, Americans do in fact come first. We offer immigrants because we are kind, and we decide to offer them a gift. They have no right to make demands on how we give our gift; they can take it or leave it. We should give our gift of immigration only after we satisfy our obligation to our own citizens, such as our African-American population.
I don't really understand the argument that the wall is racist.
I think racism was used to create support for the wall, but there obviously can be non-racist reasons for a wall. To this end, the 2,000 mile, beautiful wall was a symbol. It wasn't a rational or thoughtful strategy for reducing the amount of drugs and human trafficking that occurs via concentrated, unfenced, migration routes at the Mexican border. It was meant to symbolize that we were going to keep the brown people from Mexico out, while completely ignoring our other border.
Many of you thoughtful conservatives are interpreting his "wall" talk as being strategic additions to the fencing. I do not see anything racist about that.
I assume that you believe that anyone who supports the wall is a racist. This makes you a fascist.
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Sanger was a eugenicist. She sought to eliminate the unfit by reducing how much they reproduce. Contraception and abortion were some of the tools for that. Planned Parenthood says they don't live up to their founder's goals, but they do target minority neighborhoods, so they are behaving in line with her goals, even though they say that are not seeking to further her goals. (Can you imagine if the KKK denounced their racist origins, and started providing assistance to mainly white communities? Would you give them the benefit of the doubt?)
Regardless, the point is not necessarily that PP is racist today. I would just say that if the wall is racist, then Planned Parenthood is definitely racist. Maybe neither is racist, but if one is, then both are, and PP is clearly more so.
[Edited quite a few times, because I didn't want to be putting words in Cole's mouth. Trying to make my points, my points. Also, I had trouble adding an image to this post about Margaret Sanger's book "Woman and the New Race." and her letters of concern that the Negros will think they are trying to exterminate them. The stuff is out there if you want to google for it.]
are obtaining a racially-disparate result.
Think about Obama's suits against car lenders who allegedly tended to give better loans to people in non-minority neighborhoods (in order to launch these lawsuits, the Obama Admin analyzed data based on zip code). If car loan companies attracted a lawsuit for racial discrimination from Obama, then PP should have certainly gotten one as well.
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Thereby, intentionally or unintentionally, realizing Sanger's (and the KKK's) dreams.
Or do they pick it based on "need"?
And do you really believe they pick the locations with the goal of killing black babies?
The white birthrate is below that of African Americans and Hispanics. Is there someone else targeting them?
The point in this thread is that the standard for racism that Conor uses is crazy. If his standard is legit, and the wall is racist, then PP is definitely racist under his standard...it is an extremely low standard, and the case for PP being racist is far stronger than for the wall.
If you want to have a conversation about whether PP is actually a racist organization, without discussing comparisons to the wall, then we perhaps we should start a different thread.
I will however, note here that you seem to be focusing on intent rather than disparate effect. Liberals believe organizations can be racist by the latter rather than the former, and under that standard, PP is definitely racist. I ask again, would you give the kKK the benefit of the doubt if they said they weren't racist, but their actions had disparate racial effect?
As I mentioned elsewhere, it was more that racism was used to sell the wall, as opposed to a wall being racist in and of itself.
PP doesn't ask for funding because they will concentrate on reducing the number of black babies, who are more likely to be murderers and rapists.
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Also - abortions! Just think of how many abortions were performed today. Hundreds!
With all of the various competently staffed university and hospital clinics, not to mention even private groups.
Everyone who wants it can get care without PP.
If you’d like the reasons for my opinion, I’d be glad to discuss them privately. I’d be glad to discuss competence, as well as payment expectations among other things.
much, ie. "Good luck with that."
'Full' border security is a myth. And there is no wall. There are sections of fencing near our fam spot in Coronado that have been there for years.
Fences, 'walls' if you prefer, are costly and fairly easy to breach. They can, however, provide some deterrent in or near populous and well traveled areas.
Agree with the first line of item 3, with caveats like maintaining a clean record, and a narrow path to eventual citizenship.
We (surprisingly?) mostly agree on item 4.
Regarding number 6 - at least in California - mostly Republican farmers and businesses were only too happy to go wink, wink at illegal immigration.
The reason ? Latinos have provided a steady source of inexpensive labor in every job that requires sweating throughout Southern California.
The rather dated "A Day Without A Mexican" still is worth viewing for a satirical look at this issue in CA.
We should regulate the flow of immigration from Mexico, allowing more legal immigrants while clamping down on illegal entry. Doing so could allow
us to background check many entrants and would result in less unrest.
Much of what I said was without regard to how it could be achieved. We may need a constitution amendment or an activist SCOTUS for some of that, I admit.
I defined "full border security" in a reasonable way, not the absolute way. Deterrence of illegal immigration is effected at the margins. A wall is not perfect, but it deters some.
On residency for adult illegal immigrants, you said, "Agree with the first line of item 3, with caveats like maintaining a clean record, and a narrow path to eventual citizenship." I thought about retaining a right to deport these adults if they become criminals, but I decided just to imprison them like we do US citizens. Either works.
Like you, I believe we should make legal immigration easier, and illegal immigration harder. I've lived in a community of Mexicans. I saw that they were always up early going to work in the morning. They can be good for our country.