Is ILLEGAL Immigration a PROBLEM? Or is ILLEGAL Immigration OK With You?

[Famous Mortimer]

Obviously its an issue. Further restricting immigration and putting immigrants in concentration camps is not the way to deal with it, though. It fixes nothing, is immoral, and costs way too much money.

Taking in millions of poor Latin Americans, giving them welfare, and giving welfare to all their descendants until the end of time, that doesn't cost a lot of money?

[Famous Mortimer]

Obviously its an issue. Further restricting immigration and putting immigrants in concentration camps is not the way to deal with it, though. It fixes nothing, is immoral, and costs way too much money.

Taking in millions of poor Latin Americans, giving them welfare, and giving welfare to all their descendants until the end of time, that doesn't cost a lot of money?

Undocumented immigrants don't receive welfare because they aren't eligible. Undocumented immigrants do pay taxes that pay for programs for citizens though.

I also said for all their descendants until the end of time.

[Famous Mortimer]

Obviously its an issue. Further restricting immigration and putting immigrants in concentration camps is not the way to deal with it, though. It fixes nothing, is immoral, and costs way too much money.

Taking in millions of poor Latin Americans, giving them welfare, and giving welfare to all their descendants until the end of time, that doesn't cost a lot of money?

I know delusion is fun for you to live in, but illegal immigrants aren't criminals or welfare queens. You're just racist as hell.

Illegal immigrants are mostly welfare queens. Obviously not every single one but most. They come here because we have welfare programs that their own countries do not. They are welfare migrants.

[Famous Mortimer]

They are just people like you and me. Trying to make a better life for themselves and their children.

True. But we don't owe it to them.

[Famous Mortimer]

Obviously its an issue. Further restricting immigration and putting immigrants in concentration camps is not the way to deal with it, though. It fixes nothing, is immoral, and costs way too much money.

Taking in millions of poor Latin Americans, giving them welfare, and giving welfare to all their descendants until the end of time, that doesn't cost a lot of money?

I know delusion is fun for you to live in, but illegal immigrants aren't criminals or welfare queens. You're just racist as hell.

Illegal immigrants are mostly welfare queens. Obviously not every single one but most. They come here because we have welfare programs that their own countries do not. They are welfare migrants.

LOL, you do realize America's welfare system is actually terrible, right? They come because it has a strong economy and good opportunities, but more importantly, a good security that will keep them and their children safe, unlike in their home countries.

1) America has the reputation of having a bad welfare system because our welfare system is means tested, not universal. That means rich and middle class Americans pay taxes to fund the benefits but never get to use them themselves. That's bad for rich and middle class Americans. If you're poor though, as most people from Central America are, the welfare system is just fine.

2) Regardless of the weaknesses of its welfare system, America still offers more welfare than Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico and that's why people come here from those countries.

[Famous Mortimer]

Because, as we all know, Latin American immigration to the United States didn't exist before the New Deal.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There was always Mexican immigration but not as much.

[Famous Mortimer]

Really don't understand the mentality of liberals who say it's a problem but not a big one. Seems like the ultimate moderate heroism.

If you're one of these people, why exactly do you think illegal immigration is a problem at all?

You seem to acknowledge in the abstract that it's not ideal but you can't name any concrete drawbacks and don't actually mind if people do it anyway.

Are you just dishonest open borders supporters?

[Famous Mortimer]

Like I don't know why the position of "try to stop them at the border but if they get in, let them stay" is so popular. I understand that it was the status quo under Obama but logically it really makes no sense at all.

If you think immigration is an unqualified good and that there's no drawback to letting large numbers of needy people come here (which seems to be the position of almost everyone here who's not a Trump supporter) why not just abolish all border security?

[Famous Mortimer]

This whole "My grandpa and grandma came here from Germany/Italy/Ireland/Spain/Sweden/etc. LEGALLY!" trope is one of the biggest right-wing myths ever trotted out.

OF COURSE your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandpa came here "legally."  THERE WAS NO IMMIGRATION LAW IN 18-whatever AS WE KNOW IT TODAY.  You didn't have thousands upon thousands upon thousands of statutes and regulations covering immigration law that rival only the US Tax Code in scope, complexity, and difficulty. 

All you really needed was to prove that you weren't carrying any dreadful diseases and that you weren't a criminal or tied to any current foreign enemy, and you were good as gold to come in.

So, the whole "legal vs. illegal" thing needs to stop.

We had no standards in the past so now we are bound to have no standards forever?

Why are we bound to have the same immigration law we had in 1900 as opposed to the immigration law we had in 1950?

Why are we bound to have the same immigration law we had in 1900 but not the same laws regarding racial segregation we had in 1950?

"We did this in the past so we have to do it this way now" is a dumb argument.

I agree with you about the distinction between illegal and legal immigration needs to go.

We're full. We shouldn't allow either.

[Famous Mortimer]

With voting trends the way they are, the left knows that all these people will be dems for life. That's why there's tacit approval of illegal immigration. they could not care less about the moral/humanitarian aspect of it all

Question to Republicans: If immigrants started voting Republican, would the GOP take their feet off their necks?

If immigrants were voting Republican, the parties' positions on immigration would flip relatively quickly.

If immigrants were voting Republican, we'd have either a very different type of immigrant, or a very different type of GOP.

Exactly.

This is a dumb hypothetical.

The vast majority of migrants in the world are economic and/or welfare migrants. They are poor. They are not going to vote for a free market party that generally supports cutting welfare.

If illegal immigrants supported the GOP it would be because they had an entirely different economic profile than the illegal immigrants we are getting from Central America right now but the people with that economic profile are unlikely to immigrate illegally in the first place.

The one exception would be members of a country's ruling class who get displaced by a revolution, like what happened in Cuba but ruling classes are, almost by definition, tiny groups, so this kind of immigrant is never going to make up a majority of people who seek to immigrate.

[Famous Mortimer]

It amazes me that the party that had historically supported labor unions now openly embraces what amounts to scab labor. That's why I'm no longer a Democrat. I'm not a Republican either so don't even go there. If the Democrats would come to their senses on immigration and trade I'd come back.

Are American citizens actually willing to do the jobs that migrant workers currently do?

Not for the wages that scabs work for. That's the point of scabs.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'd like to note that pretty much no one on this thread has mentioned the welfare of the immigrants, who are the people most affected by the policy. I think the effect on Americans is most likely only slightly negative, but for immigrants, it's very clearly enormously negative, the great bulk of the human cost of deportation, and yet it goes unnoticed.

Exactly. The concerns of the global poor are so much more important than those of less-fortunate Americans, who, despite their genuine challenges, still have Obamacare, a half-livable wage, and a variety of other benevolent institutions.

At least you are admitting you consider the concerns of foreigners "so much more important" than the concerns of Americans.

I just wish all immigration advocates would be open about this.