Southern border crisis

Chew Toy McCoy

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There’s no shame in admitting there is a crisis or that things need to be reevaluated and adjusted. I feel Biden and Democrat politicians are treating this the same way Trump treated the pandemic, but unlike the pandemic it’s a lot easier to get visual proof than molecules floating through the air.

Whatever your feelings are about immigration or how its being handled, nothing scares the shit out of the right more than the thought of unauthorized impure dark skinned blood flooding across the border and into our towns and cities. Democrats could lose their razor thin majority just based on this one issue alone and at this early stage I don’t think they’re handling it well or giving any indication they have a solid plan to improve things beyond expanding the number of locations to house/cage more people. Is that the plan? Increase the number of facilities as the number of immigrants increases. That isn’t going to go over well for a lot of voters.
 

SuperMatt

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There’s no shame in admitting there is a crisis or that things need to be reevaluated and adjusted. I feel Biden and Democrat politicians are treating this the same way Trump treated the pandemic, but unlike the pandemic it’s a lot easier to get visual proof than molecules floating through the air.

Whatever your feelings are about immigration or how its being handled, nothing scares the shit out of the right more than the thought of unauthorized impure dark skinned blood flooding across the border and into our towns and cities. Democrats could lose their razor thin majority just based on this one issue alone and at this early stage I don’t think they’re handling it well or giving any indication they have a solid plan to improve things beyond expanding the number of locations to house/cage more people. Is that the plan? Increase the number of facilities as the number of immigrants increases. That isn’t going to go over well for a lot of voters.
Biden has already started to try and address this, but I don’t know how much can be done. Trump was dead-set on preventing immigration and didn’t have any success in stopping it.

American businesses basically run Congress. Let’s accept that. And American businesses rely on labor from undocumented immigrants. They can pay them as little as they want, and they can use the threat of deportation if they ever complain. And, since ICE basically never throws a business owner in jail for hiring this way, there is zero risk for the business.

If we have a path to citizenship, or even if we take the far more effective strategy of going after the businesses that hire undocumented immigrants instead of the workers themselves, businesses would lose a cheap, pliable source of labor. Until we get Congress to flip on their corporate masters, this problem simply will not go away. Maybe Biden can take on the business lobby, but no way over 50% of Congress will flip on their donors... I hope I’m wrong.
 
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Biden has already started to try and address this, but I don’t know how much can be done. Trump was dead-set on preventing immigration and didn’t have any success in stopping it.

American businesses basically run Congress. Let’s accept that. And American businesses rely on labor from undocumented immigrants. They can pay them as little as they want, and they can use the threat of deportation if they ever complain. And, since ICE basically never throws a business owner in jail for hiring this way, there is zero risk for the business.

If we have a path to citizenship, or even if we take the far more effective strategy of going after the businesses that hire undocumented immigrants instead of the workers themselves, businesses would lose a cheap, pliable source of labor. Until we get Congress to flip on their corporate masters, this problem simply will not go away. Maybe Biden can take on the business lobby, but no way over 50% of Congress will flip on their donors... I hope I’m wrong.

The crisis is real, but pretending like it's something that fundamentally stems from Biden's less than 2months in presidency is a stretch. It's also insane to expect a deeply stemmed issue to be again, fixed in less than 2 mo. The real concern is that people may feel encouraged by an admin that is explicitly against concentration camps. (My wording is to emphasize the low bar of decency being signalled here).

Some points I consider important that remain undiscussed:
1) The main sources of migrants are banana republics. The term is important because it encodes the long history of the USA's meddling to destabilize these nations. (If we are pissed about Russia attempting it, just imagine how upsetting it is when such attempts succeed).
2) I'm really frustrated about this issue considered a localized border issue. If you wanna fix it in a humane way, you need to fix it in the country of origin of migrants. I'm baffled how we don't talk about this.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Biden has already started to try and address this, but I don’t know how much can be done. Trump was dead-set on preventing immigration and didn’t have any success in stopping it.

American businesses basically run Congress. Let’s accept that. And American businesses rely on labor from undocumented immigrants. They can pay them as little as they want, and they can use the threat of deportation if they ever complain. And, since ICE basically never throws a business owner in jail for hiring this way, there is zero risk for the business.

If we have a path to citizenship, or even if we take the far more effective strategy of going after the businesses that hire undocumented immigrants instead of the workers themselves, businesses would lose a cheap, pliable source of labor. Until we get Congress to flip on their corporate masters, this problem simply will not go away. Maybe Biden can take on the business lobby, but no way over 50% of Congress will flip on their donors... I hope I’m wrong.

Unfortunately there are a lot of people on the right who feel Trump did have great success at the border with stopping immigrants. Also, like it or not, messaging has a big impact. If the perception is under the current administration they won't make it in, get treated harshly, or get kicked out then less people will attempt it. That's just fact.

Maybe if there was more doxing of businesses hiring illegal immigrants it wouldn’t be perceived as 100% Democrats want open borders for voting purposes. That’s the kind of tactic the right and their media would use but I don’t think Democrats have the balls, and as you mentioned, donors…many of who play both sides so they can get favors regardless of who wins.
 

SuperMatt

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Unfortunately there are a lot of people on the right who feel Trump did have great success at the border with stopping immigrants. Also, like it or not, messaging has a big impact. If the perception is under the current administration they won't make it in, get treated harshly, or get kicked out then less people will attempt it. That's just fact.

Maybe if there was more doxing of businesses hiring illegal immigrants it wouldn’t be perceived as 100% Democrats want open borders for voting purposes. That’s the kind of tactic the right and their media would use but I don’t think Democrats have the balls, and as you mentioned, donors…many of who play both sides so they can get favors regardless of who wins.
Tate’s bake shop has been “doxxed” but I haven’t seen calls for boycotts. Even if there were calls, right-wingers would probably sneak into liberal territory such as Whole Foods to buy the Tate’s cookies as a counter-protest.

 

Chew Toy McCoy

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The crisis is real, but pretending like it's something that fundamentally stems from Biden's less than 2months in presidency is a stretch. It's also insane to expect a deeply stemmed issue to be again, fixed in less than 2 mo. The real concern is that people may feel encouraged by an admin that is explicitly against concentration camps. (My wording is to emphasize the low bar of decency being signalled here).

Some points I consider important that remain undiscussed:
1) The main sources of migrants are banana republics. The term is important because it encodes the long history of the USA's meddling to destabilize these nations. (If we are pissed about Russia attempting it, just imagine how upsetting it is when such attempts succeed).
2) I'm really frustrated about this issue considered a localized border issue. If you wanna fix it in a humane way, you need to fix it in the country of origin of migrants. I'm baffled how we don't talk about this.

I'll add to your list

3) US drug demands and the ungodly amounts of money that drives violence and corruption in those countries. In some cases the drug cartels are the defacto government.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Tate’s bake shop has been “doxxed” but I haven’t seen calls for boycotts. Even if there were calls, right-wingers would probably sneak into liberal territory such as Whole Foods to buy the Tate’s cookies as a counter-protest.


But to be effective I think this type of thing needs to happen on a lot larger and frequent scale. It needs to match the level of ICE raids on immigrants. There should be a legitimate fear of getting caught and punished for hiring illegal immigrants.
 

SuperMatt

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But to be effective I think this type of thing needs to happen on a lot larger and frequent scale. It needs to match the level of ICE raids on immigrants. There should be a legitimate fear of getting caught and punished for hiring illegal immigrants.
Law enforcement needs to take action. Right now, they take none against businesses, only against workers. Public shaming isn’t a sustainable public policy.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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I know this sounds like a joke because it practically is, but why are Home Depot parking lots untouchable? At best you have workers getting paid under the table and at worst you have illegals offering their services out in the open. Either way some law is being broken.
 

thekev

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Tate’s bake shop has been “doxxed” but I haven’t seen calls for boycotts. Even if there were calls, right-wingers would probably sneak into liberal territory such as Whole Foods to buy the Tate’s cookies as a counter-protest.


There needs to a lot of pressure in this regard. Their being undocumented makes this kind of abuse really really easy. I commented on something similar in the other place. Even if you have Americans willing to take on the same or similar jobs, Americans are much more likely to report labor violations and less likely to tolerate abusive practices.

I'll add to your list

3) US drug demands and the ungodly amounts of money that drives violence and corruption in those countries. In some cases the drug cartels are the defacto government.

Ignoring the fact that I don't like anything that messes with my thought process (alcohol included), this is one of those reasons why I would never use drugs. I wouldn't want to support the people who traffic them.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Americans are much more likely to report labor violations and less likely to tolerate abusive practices.

I think this is also an unspoken reason establishment Democrats love immigrant voters. Immigrants are just going to be happy being in this country and not in the one they came from. They aren't going to be making a lot of demands for changes, especially not of the more progressive variety.

Ignoring the fact that I don't like anything that messes with my thought process (alcohol included), this is one of those reasons why I would never use drugs. I wouldn't want to support the people who traffic them.

There's a famous saying in the drug cartel world. Silver or lead? meaning take the bribe or get shot. Those are your only options. And they won't just target that person. They'll also target their family. They are probably equally armed to the local military. The cartels also offer way more pay than the legal jobs, including those done by the people who should be arresting and fighting them. I really don't know how you would combat all that.

To make things worse every time there's a government administration change they also change how they are going to deal with the cartels. So you could have one administration that has been successful combatting the cartels replaced by an administration that decides they should work and negotiate with the cartels in an effort to decrease the violence. The next administration will hit their own reset button. In a way it almost feels like how the US deals with the border situation and that needs to stop.
 
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I think this is also an unspoken reason establishment Democrats love immigrant voters. Immigrants are just going to be happy being in this country and not in the one they came from. They aren't going to be making a lot of demands for changes, especially not of the more progressive variety.



There's a famous saying in the drug cartel world. Silver or lead? meaning take the bribe or get shot. Those are your only options. And they won't just target that person. They'll also target their family. They are probably equally armed to the local military. The cartels also offer way more pay than the legal jobs, including those done by the people who should be arresting and fighting them. I really don't know how you would combat all that.

To make things worse every time there's a government administration change they also change how they are going to deal with the cartels. So you could have one administration that has been successful combatting the cartels replaced by an administration that decides they should work and negotiate with the cartels in an effort to decrease the violence. The next administration will hit their own reset button. In a way it almost feels like how the US deals with the border situation and that needs to stop.
Take away their market (this may include avocados..). So yes I agree with @thekev don't feed trolls or cartels.
 

thekev

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I think this is also an unspoken reason establishment Democrats love immigrant voters. Immigrants are just going to be happy being in this country and not in the one they came from. They aren't going to be making a lot of demands for changes, especially not of the more progressive variety.

That's pretty cynical. I'm not sure whether I would be comfortable making that claim. Establishment Democrats are not stupid, so even if they privately viewed things this way, you would find it difficult to find significant evidence of this.

To make things worse every time there's a government administration change they also change how they are going to deal with the cartels. So you could have one administration that has been successful combatting the cartels replaced by an administration that decides they should work and negotiate with the cartels in an effort to decrease the violence. The next administration will hit their own reset button. In a way it almost feels like how the US deals with the border situation and that needs to stop.

Taking away their market from the US side would go a long way. It's not just politicians though. You need a general cultural desire to not support drug cartels and similar organizations.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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That's pretty cynical. I'm not sure whether I would be comfortable making that claim. Establishment Democrats are not stupid, so even if they privately viewed things this way, you would find it difficult to find significant evidence of this.

Well, after decades of Republicans knowing more people voting means less Republican wins they are now saying that publicly while ramping up voter suppression tactics. I'm just saying first generation immigrants aren't going to be joining the marches in the street demanding free health care or college or union protection.

Taking away their market from the US side would go a long way. It's not just politicians though. You need a general cultural desire to not support drug cartels and similar organizations.

I've always found it interesting that we talk about how great America is and yet have a huge population that needs to escape through alcohol or drugs, and that's exactly what it is, an escape from reality. So cultural change has nothing to do with it, especially when the addiction side kicks in. The only way to stop the demand is to have a freedom based society that doesn't need to be emotionally or mentally escaped from. Good luck with that. It could be argued that maybe stop pushing the message that you constantly have to be improving and owning more stuff, but A). that's counter to capitalism and B). even the minimalist hippies aren't exactly known for being clear mind drug free.
 

thekev

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Well, after decades of Republicans knowing more people voting means less Republican wins they are now saying that publicly while ramping up voter suppression tactics. I'm just saying first generation immigrants aren't going to be joining the marches in the street demanding free health care or college or union protection.

Well, they have always been dirtbags. Now they have stopped pretending otherwise. Public admission is good when it comes to court cases on these things.

I've always found it interesting that we talk about how great America is and yet have a huge population that needs to escape through alcohol or drugs, and that's exactly what it is, an escape from reality. So cultural change has nothing to do with it, especially when the addiction side kicks in. The only way to stop the demand is to have a freedom based society that doesn't need to be emotionally or mentally escaped from. Good luck with that. It could be argued that maybe stop pushing the message that you constantly have to be improving and owning more stuff, but A). that's counter to capitalism and B). even the minimalist hippies aren't exactly known for being clear mind drug free.

The addiction side can start from recreational use. I'm not arguing against whether some people enjoy this, just that it supports some really shitty people. While some of those might move onto other enterprises, the drug cartels rely on high margins and the ability to ship from low cost countries.
 
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Well, after decades of Republicans knowing more people voting means less Republican wins they are now saying that publicly while ramping up voter suppression tactics. I'm just saying first generation immigrants aren't going to be joining the marches in the street demanding free health care or college or union protection.



I've always found it interesting that we talk about how great America is and yet have a huge population that needs to escape through alcohol or drugs, and that's exactly what it is, an escape from reality. So cultural change has nothing to do with it, especially when the addiction side kicks in. The only way to stop the demand is to have a freedom based society that doesn't need to be emotionally or mentally escaped from. Good luck with that. It could be argued that maybe stop pushing the message that you constantly have to be improving and owning more stuff, but A). that's counter to capitalism and B). even the minimalist hippies aren't exactly known for being clear mind drug free.
This is relative tho. One of my friends from med school is a psychiatrist in Denmark. One of the things people may be unaware of is that Denmark (as well as Norway and Sweden) have some of the highest use of SSRIs in the world. Of course some of it is due to them being located in a depressing climate, but it's also a benchmark of the availability of mental health services and the social safety net. Mental health access is pretty bad in the USA. Like really bad. I prescribe SSRIs occasionally (preferentially SNRIs), but getting people to see psychiatry is one of the most frustrating processes. Never succeeded to get patients in within 6 mo unless they pay out of pocket, OR if I used my little influence and asked a buddy to squeeze the patient in. Lot of time substance abuse is a form of self-medication...In fact it's one of the best indicators of an undiagnosed psych condition. I suspect you guys see what I'm eluding to here....
 

Huntn

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Unfortunately there are a lot of people on the right who feel Trump did have great success at the border with stopping immigrants. Also, like it or not, messaging has a big impact. If the perception is under the current administration they won't make it in, get treated harshly, or get kicked out then less people will attempt it. That's just fact.

Maybe if there was more doxing of businesses hiring illegal immigrants it wouldn’t be perceived as 100% Democrats want open borders for voting purposes. That’s the kind of tactic the right and their media would use but I don’t think Democrats have the balls, and as you mentioned, donors…many of who play both sides so they can get favors regardless of who wins.
Trump’s methodology was to turn it off. Biden is returning to a former standard however, the Biden Administration is putting in place an actual methodology to apply for Assylum while staying in place. It remains to be seen how effective that it.

When I was younger, my primary beef with illegal immigration was social services/education being diverted to illegal immigrants If they were not paying taxes. I would say that is still a concern along with taking good jobs, those would be skilled jobs that can be found in building/home construction. If the system was set up properly these immigrants should not be able to take these jobs, but then you have to look at the employers. Now agriculture jobs that basically no citizens want are different. This is where they need to liberalize work visas, while acknowledging I’m no expert about this. Maybe they are liberalized and these immigrants just want to stay full time? This is where the emphasis should be, a system that without doubt verifies citizenship status. I think most States are on that road and consequently , getting a drivers license in a State for the first time is a pain in the ass.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Trump’s methodology was to turn it off. Biden is returning to a former standard however, the Biden Administration is putting in place an actual methodology to apply for Assylum while staying in place. It remains to be seen how effective that it.

When I was younger, my primary beef with illegal immigration was social services/education being diverted to illegal immigrants If they were not paying taxes. I would say that is still a concern along with taking good jobs, those would be skilled jobs that can be found in building/home construction. If the system was set up properly these immigrants should not be able to take these jobs, but then you have to look at the employers. Now agriculture jobs that basically no citizens want are different. This is where they need to liberalize work visas, while acknowledging I’m no expert about this. Maybe they are liberalized and these immigrants just want to stay full time? This is where the emphasis should be, a system that without doubt verifies citizenship status. I think most States are on that road and consequently , getting a drivers license in a State for the first time is a pain in the ass.

To be fair, they just aren't paying income tax and in TX nobody pays state income tax so they should be slightly less pissed about that. But I realize this is just one aspect of the greater issue.

What I'd like to know is how come it's so easy to get into Mexico and it seems like they are perfectly fine letting them use their country as a hallway straight to the US. Is that some kind of passive aggressive middle finger to the US?
 

SuperMatt

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To be fair, they just aren't paying income tax and in TX nobody pays state income tax so they should be slightly less pissed about that. But I realize this is just one aspect of the greater issue.

What I'd like to know is how come it's so easy to get into Mexico and it seems like they are perfectly fine letting them use their country as a hallway straight to the US. Is that some kind of passive aggressive middle finger to the US?
If America, one of the richest countries in the world, cannot prevent the influx over our borders, even with Trump for 4 years who was determined to do so… then how could we expect Mexico to keep people out?
 
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