Should sanctuary cities be tolerated?

Hercules56 said:
I think its national suicide to just let in everyone who wants to come here.

Will place a terrible burden upon all of our social services and resources.

We don't have the jobs or the housing or the schools or the social services to deal with the situation where everyone who wants to be here can come here.

That's why most countries do not allow such a thing but for some reason you guys think America should be special.
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Whatever the case may be, what exactly is wrong with a more passive and measured approach to battling illegal immigration? I don't think these raids incited by needles paranoia will work out too well, or end up as a net positive in any regard. Like the "releasing" of water and deployment of marines, it's just a horribly expensive PR stunt, stoking the fears of the population for personal gain. Illegal immigration isn't worth fighting this heavy-handedly. These efforts are just a money sink towards dehumanization.
 
Olmstead said:
Whatever the case may be, what exactly is wrong with a more passive and measured approach to battling illegal immigration? I don't think these raids incited by needles
paranoiawill work out too well, or end up as a net positive in any regard. Like the "releasing" of water and deployment of marines, it's just a horribly expensive PR stunt, stoking the fears of the population for personal gain. Illegal immigration isn't worth fighting this heavy-handedly. These efforts are just a money sink towards dehumanization.
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Part of me suspects that "paranoia" may be the point. Making life in the U.S. unpleasant for illegal immigrants could be seen as a deterrent to coming here. (As opposed to a slap on the wrist and a bus ride to the border.) It may even be somewhat effective.

However, there are some major issues here.
  • The tactics seem to be detain, then investigate as opposed to investigate then detain. Which puts legal immigrants, naturalized citizens, native born people of certain ethnicities also in a state of fear. (Let's be clear, being detained by law enforcement is traumatizing even if not charged.)
  • There is also a practice of rescinding legal status, thus re-defining an individual (or group of individuals) from a state of "legally present" to a state of "illegally present," often without being the result of anything the person(s) in question did. And possibly without adequate notice to allow them to make other arrangements on their own.
  • Actions above mere deportation, such as causing someone to be imprisoned at our behest in a facility outside our jurisdiction or control. If someone is imprisoned at our behest, it seems to me that we are responsible for the conditions and treatment and also for the ability to terminate said imprisonment.
  • Add to the above the lack of criminal conviction and sentencing.
  • Denying access to an immigration detainee by family and friends (let alone attorneys) is pointlessly cruel and out of proportion for the crime. Seems to be often done by transferring a detainee from a nearby facility to one multiple states and hundreds of miles away.
  • When someone tries to enter the country (legally), but is denied, just say "no" and help them arrange a return flight or go back across the border by vehicle. No need to detain someone for asking to enter.
A lot of my objection to immigration enforcement has to do with how it's done rather than the enforcement itself. It all serves to make the U.S. a bit less pleasant even for those of us who have no risk of harassment by ICE. (Middle-class, middle-age white guy here.)
 
Olmstead said:
Whatever the case may be, what exactly is wrong with a more passive and measured approach to battling illegal immigration? I don't think these raids incited by needles paranoia will work out too well, or end up as a net positive in any regard. Like the "releasing" of water and deployment of marines, it's just a horribly expensive PR stunt, stoking the fears of the population for personal gain. Illegal immigration isn't worth fighting this heavy-handedly. These efforts are just a money sink towards dehumanization.
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I agree, a scalpel would work better than Trump's current sledgehammer approach.

Get out the criminals first, then slowly but surely grab the non-criminals.

I think we should also offering people expedited Green Cards if they register and leave on their own. But they will have to face some sort of penalty, such as having to wait twice as long to apply for citizenship as regular legal immigrants. And maybe a fine.
 
Hercules56 said:
I agree, a scalpel would work better than Trump's current sledgehammer approach.

Get out the criminals first, then slowly but surely grab the non-criminals.

I think we should also offering people expedited Green Cards if they register and leave on their own. But they will have to face some sort of penalty, such as having to wait twice as long to apply for citizenship as regular legal immigrants. And maybe a fine.
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Do you think the measures during Biden's term were somehow insufficient? Because the impression I get is that the immigrant panic is just a page out of the populist playbook. I don't think any escalation was necessary.
 
Olmstead said:
Do you think the measures during Biden's term were somehow insufficient? Because the impression I get is that the immigrant panic is just a page out of the populist playbook. I don't think any escalation was necessary.
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Allowing everyone who came to the border to apply for political asylum when we know the vast majority were full of ◊◊◊◊, was not Biden's greatest moment.
 
Most countries in the world are begging for more people, given aging demographics. Few places are allowing that to translate into more liberal immigration policies. Japan and SK, OTOH, are now forced by need to find some way to make migrants palatable to their ethnocentric societies. Across the West, birth rates are down, in most places below the replacement level.

In the case of the US, immigration is from among nations largely friendly to it, and culturally similar enough, such that there is a great degree of assimilation by the third generation. Economic growth is enhanced by a rising population base. The US has it made in this regard. Much better off than many competing nations.

So, yes to immigrants, and to arranging for their status to become legal. Which means administrative and civil laws may be broken, but there is no criminal outbreak as the racist Right claims. Crime is much worse in Red states by any account, where the presence of immigrants is less.

It is not only legal, as others have pointed out, for states not to enforce federal law, but treating the influx of immigrants as a positive thing is logical and in their self-interest. Yes to sanctuary cities, and no to their need to ask permission of the intolerant.
***
Aside: Real question is, should the intolerant be tolerated? Why recognize anyone as a rights-holding person who, e.g., all the while arbitrarily denies that same recognition to others using dehumanizing calumny and degrading lies? (Trump, Netanyahu) This form of the democracy paradox is best resolved by identifying such speech as hate speech, and legally exempting it from protection under the right to free speech.
 
arthwollipot said:
Only one person in this thread has brought up open borders.
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So you think we should NOT let in anyone who wants to come in? We should have a controlled and orderly immigration system where people have to wait in line, sometimes for years, and a limit to yearly immigration numbers?
 
I realize this wasn’t addressed to me (and rule of so…) but….
Hercules56 said:
So you think we should NOT let in anyone who wants to come in?
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I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say that everyone should be admitted. No one is advocating open borders.

Hercules56 said:
We should have a controlled and orderly immigration system
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Yes.

Hercules56 said:
where people have to wait in line, sometimes for years,
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No. That’s one of the causes of illegal immigration. Yes or no decisions should be quick. And there should be no queue.
Hercules56 said:
and a limit to yearly immigration numbers?
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Possibly. But no queue. Once a yearly quota is filled, stop taking applications. Start fresh the next year.

If there’s a quota it should take into account the expected need for laborers.
 
TomB said:
I realize this wasn’t addressed to me (and rule of so…) but….

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone say that everyone should be admitted. No one is advocating open borders.
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Exactly. It's not like there has been open borders or anything close to it. More people had been deported during the Biden administration than during any time in US history.
 
Hercules56 said:
Allowing everyone who came to the border to apply for political asylum when we know the vast majority were full of ◊◊◊◊, was not Biden's greatest moment.
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Mojo said:
It's that problem you have with the concept of due process again, isn't it?
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And, of course, your compulsion to parrot the Trump regime's propaganda, despite in no way supporting it.
 
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