Immigration hawks only: What made you tough on immigration and when did you become tough?

[Saint Milei]

And by immigration hawks, I mean the cultural conservatives. Not the cruz types

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

Why don’t you think the Cruz types are cultural conservatives? If anyone was the champion of cultural conservatism it was Ted Cruz.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Why don’t you think the Cruz types are cultural conservatives? If anyone was the champion of cultural conservatism it was Ted Cruz.

Yeah I'm a Cruz type, live in a wealthy suburb, etc etc, but I'd still define myself as a cultural conservative.

[Saint Milei]

Why don’t you think the Cruz types are cultural conservatives? If anyone was the champion of cultural conservatism it was Ted Cruz.

When I think of a cultural conservative, I think of someone like Pat Buchanan, Paul Gottfried, Hawley/Cotton (to a lesser extent), and members of the alt right. Ted Cruz is clearly very socially conservative, but there's a difference between being socially conservative and culturally conservative. You can obviously be both. A cultural conservative is also more likely to be a paleoconservative.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

Why don’t you think the Cruz types are cultural conservatives? If anyone was the champion of cultural conservatism it was Ted Cruz.

When I think of a cultural conservative, I think of someone like Pat Buchanan, Paul Gottfried, Hawley/Cotton (to a lesser extent), and members of the alt right. Ted Cruz is clearly very socially conservative, but there's a difference between being socially conservative and culturally conservative. You can obviously be both. A cultural conservative is also more likely to be a paleoconservative.

I guess, but at the same time, I don't know what other label really makes sense for someone like me. On the other hand, I only even somewhat like 1 of those politicians. Maybe if we had some more specific definitions?

[Former President tack50]

Ok, I am not a conservative at all, though I still think immigration is one of the issues I lean more conservative on (even if I am still on the left or the center at worse), so I will bite.

Basically in my opinion there is only so many immigrants a nation can take and assimilate and I think there is not being enough assimilation of the new arrivals. We are doing ok, but we are not doing good enough.

There is also the fact that, at least in Europe, immigrants are doing worse in almost all metrics. So immigrant groups tend to use more welfare and commit more crimes than the native born population for instance. So while they may be technically a net gain for the economy in the abstract; they are probably a net loss or no net change for public finances and regardless I do not think it is worthwhile tradeoff in the end.

That does not mean I want to stop all immigration or anything, in fact I think the current laws are fine; they should just be very strictly enforced and we should be a lot tougher on illegal immigrants.

I will also note that some nationalities tend to have a much easier time integrating and immigrating than others. Some of that is admittedly racism but some of that is also fundamental cultural differences.

As for when I became tough (well, relatively tough for a leftist I suppose; I am still to the left of most conservatives on immigration), I suppose it was some time in 2017 or 2018. Ironically I did not care much about the refugee crisis of 2017 and barely paid attention at the time, though the recent spike on crime rates is probably what turned me.

[Saint Milei]

Why don’t you think the Cruz types are cultural conservatives? If anyone was the champion of cultural conservatism it was Ted Cruz.

When I think of a cultural conservative, I think of someone like Pat Buchanan, Paul Gottfried, Hawley/Cotton (to a lesser extent), and members of the alt right. Ted Cruz is clearly very socially conservative, but there's a difference between being socially conservative and culturally conservative. You can obviously be both. A cultural conservative is also more likely to be a paleoconservative.

I guess, but at the same time, I don't know what other label really makes sense for someone like me. On the other hand, I only even somewhat like 1 of those politicians. Maybe if we had some more specific definitions?

Cultural conservatism deals with the heritage of a nation, the identity, tradition, etc. Very few current politicians address this. To be completely honest, cultural conservatism deals with a lot of the alt right's concerns

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Being from a working class family, I would say it was the result of my parents employment situation in 2005 -2008. My father worked manufacturing and my mother worked in retail and both had to deal with the effects of illegal immigration. Wage depression is a real and noticeable impact that many in our community felt directly, especially those in the construction field as well.

This led me to get on NumbersUSA and from there I learned about the parents of people killed by illegal aliens.

These two combined led me to become a border hawk and it became my primary litmus test for candidates. I grew to detest the Washington establishment, people like John McCain, Arlen Specter and the like. The most eggregious moment was when Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter tried to split all of the debate time equally between themselves, meaning supporters of the bill would get 100% of the time. In the end the opponents (DeMint, Sessions, Vitter, Coburn) got like 30% of the time to make the case after they pointed out the obvious problem with the time being split equally between two supporters of the bill.

At the same time this was going on, you had the incompetence in Iraq's rebuilding and the mass corruption scandals, so there was a lot of bleed over from these areas into a general disgust at Washington insiders and a desire to see people elected would burn the ediface down. That is why I supported most of the tea party esque candidates in 2010 cycle, including Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, Joe Miller and then later in the 2012 cycle, Ted Cruz.

[jaymichaud]

I’m not a massive hawk (hell, I’m the son of immigrants myself) but I do hate how a lot of immigrants refuse to integrate with their host countries or they care more about their countries of origin.

For example I know a guy who is my age and solely identifies as ‘Pakistani’, despite his grandparents immigrating to Canada in the 1960s and only visiting a few times on vacation.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Im tough on immigration but not a hawk. I say the views of friends & family made me that way, as well as the terror attacks in Europe.

[Nightcore Nationalist]

I used to be an "unrestricted immigration rises all tides" socially liberal libertarian (this is right on the cusp of the Dem party embracing Tumblr-esque identitarianism in 2015)  But I switched for these reasons-

-Wages, particularly for entry level tech workers (Visas), which leads to a shrinking and damaged middle class.  It's basically good for Corporations and the top 1%, but few others.
-rising housing costs
-at least until the migrant crisis, nearly all other nations were tougher on immigration than the US.
-It was pretty obvious that democrats (going back to Ted Kennedy in 65) are softer on immigration for their own mid and long term political benefits.
-Britain alone had several hundred acid attacks from migrants, and the period of 2015-2017 saw a large rise in terrorist attacks.  Nations are under no obligation to allow just anyone come in-without consent of the governed.  The EU, more than anything else turned me into a nationalist.

-If people want to come here, and they earn their citizenship, assimilate and don't commit crime, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with a reasonable amount of legal immigration.  I also think that a modest number of refugees should be allowed from Hong Kong, Venezuela and Cuba.  I still believe in birthright citizenship but there should definitely be a wall.