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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 17:52:47 GMT -5
Didn't Trump say he wanted to send Syrian refugees back to Syria? And really, let's test this with a specific hypothetical. If a shipful of Rohingyas showed up on the coast today, we're pretty much certain Trump would let them in? I don't share the same level of confidence, unfortunately. Nor do I (I suspect for the same reasons). I'll add that it doesn't particularly matter to me what particular hellhole we're sending them back to -- it need not be specifically Nazis they're fleeing for me to feel we should grant them asylum. In any case, while we're waiting to sort it out, we shouldn't be wrenching their babies from them just to teach them a lesson. To the extent someone feels differently about this, I think we'll have to agree to disagree.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 18:24:11 GMT -5
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Post by Amadan on Jun 17, 2018 18:25:14 GMT -5
I already said I don't think we should separate children from parents, though Prozyan gave a good pretty explanation of how and why that's happening.
You've cited Jews, Syrians, and Rohingyans, and in those specific cases, if a boatload of refugees arrived here and our options were to take them in or send them back, I think we should take them in. That said, I think we should also work on making future boatloads of refugees not become exclusively our problem.
But you have not addressed my main point: most of the "refugees" we're taking in are not from Syria or Myanmar. They are from places like Guatamala, El Salvador, Somalia... places where life undoubtedly sucks for most people and where pretty much everyone could cite dangers few Americans face. Heck, most of Venezuela right now would probably like to emigrate to the U.S. Should we let them? What exactly is your bar for letting people in? Because if all they have to do is establish that their life back home was unpleasant and they'd be better off here, we might as well just open the borders completely.
If you cannot acknowledge a middle ground between "Send Jews back to the Nazis" and "Let in everyone coming from a bad place," then you're right, we'll just have to agree to disagree.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 18:32:43 GMT -5
By and large, I'd let most of them in, so yes, we will have to agree to disagree.
Perhaps this comes of having all of my ancestors come here in the last hundred years, impoverished, not particularly well-educated, most of them, and mostly not speaking English. Every one of them came here to do whatever menial work they could get for a chance at a better life. Soon they were starting businesses. A couple of generations later, they produced an ivy league lawyer and a pile of college graduates. That, to me, is the American dream. I think immigrants can contribute to our economy, and I do not see it as a zero sum game.
Certainly I'd let anyone in who was facing a high likelihood of death or persecution if turned away.
ETA:
That said, I don't disagree that we should work on it not being entirely on us to take in every refugee in the world. But that, to me, doesn't mean turning them all away, folding our arms, and saying "not our problem". It means, e.g., working to alleviate some horrifying conditions in their countries, to the extent that's possible, and working with our allies so we're all helping. It means being a goddamn leader and an example.
Unfortunately, of course, we have Trump in charge, so we're kissing the asses of the world's most corrupt and vicious dictators while alienating our allies and turning our backs on countries in need of assistance.
The leader of the free world we most assuredly no longer are.
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Post by prozyan on Jun 17, 2018 18:39:04 GMT -5
There is a failure to recognize that the US of a hundred years ago is not the US of today....
Do you really think the US can open the floodgates and accepted an estimated - on the low side - 45 million immigrants and refugees per year into the country? Where are we going to house them, educate them, give them adequate healthcare? Unlike 100 years ago, we have no open territories, our school systems are flooded, overworked and underfunded, and our healthcare gets worse with each attempt to "fix" it.
Hell, the US can't even take care of its own population.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 18:46:32 GMT -5
Possibly were we not more interested in increasing our deficit by a trillion to give super wealthy people and corporations tax breaks, and instead used it to help people, we'd be able to take care of our own people.
The day the GOP passed that tax break is the day I rejected that "we can't even take care of our own people," etc. We could. Other countries do. We don't.
We suck.
I seriously find it mortifying to be an American these days.
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Post by Amadan on Jun 17, 2018 19:03:27 GMT -5
Okay, hypothetically we could become a generous welfare state capable of lavishing benefits on infinite number of economic migrants (that's what we're talking about - not "refugees") if we taxed rich people and corporations more.
I still fail to see why we'd be obligated to do so. I agree, we should assume our proper place as world leaders and work on alleviating problems in those countries that drive people to leave, and I agree that the Trump administration is not doing that.
But, I'm sorry, I am also a descendant of immigrants. Most of us are. And as Prozyan said, we're no longer a country with the capacity to absorb that kind of influx. And if we have the money to make life better for millions and millions of people who want to come here from their own less wealthy countries, I'd prefer that money be spent on our existing citizenry, thanks.
That doesn't mean "Zero immigration" and it certainly doesn't mean turning away genuine refugees, for whom returning where they came from is a likely death sentence. But it does mean not taking in everyone whose life would be improved by coming here.
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Post by prozyan on Jun 17, 2018 19:06:21 GMT -5
These days....PUH-LEASE....
Shit isn't significantly different now than it was two decades or more ago. Fifteen years ago in the lead up to the Iraqi War, it was all the rage to say but the billions and billions we're spending! We could solve healthcare with that! We could fight homelessness with that! And yet, prior to 2003, we didn't use those billions and billions to do any of that.
Tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy? We could raise taxes on them and pay for all this great stuff. Yet in the decades prior to Trump...we didn't. And prior to the breaks it isn't like corporations and the wealthy were using those dollars to build homeless shelters.
Even Obama's healthcare proposal....did this come from a tax on corporations? The wealthy? Hell no, it was nothing more than an additional tax on the middle class, one most couldn't and can't afford.
The tax breaks have fuck all to do with why we can't or don't take care of our problems. Thinking otherwise is nothing more than Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The tax breaks are no different than the immigration problem. People in power see it as nothing more than a political club to beat each other over the head with.
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Post by michaelw on Jun 17, 2018 19:17:35 GMT -5
You've cited Jews, Syrians, and Rohingyans, and in those specific cases, if a boatload of refugees arrived here and our options were to take them in or send them back, I think we should take them in. So do I. But I thought you were saying something else before: that the US would let them in, not just that they should. Or was I misunderstanding you?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 19:33:04 GMT -5
Okay, hypothetically we could become a generous welfare state capable of lavishing benefits on infinite number of economic migrants (that's what we're talking about - not "refugees") if we taxed rich people and corporations more. I still fail to see why we'd be obligated to do so. I agree, we should assume our proper place as world leaders and work on alleviating problems in those countries that drive people to leave, and I agree that the Trump administration is not doing that. But, I'm sorry, I am also a descendant of immigrants. Most of us are. And as Prozyan said, we're no longer a country with the capacity to absorb that kind of influx. And if we have the money to make life better for millions and millions of people who want to come here from their own less wealthy countries, I'd prefer that money be spent on our existing citizenry, thanks. That doesn't mean "Zero immigration" and it certainly doesn't mean turning away genuine refugees, for whom returning where they came from is a likely death sentence. But it does mean not taking in everyone whose life would be improved by coming here. Okay. I understand your points. And if we were making a conscientious effort to accept genuine refugees (e.g.,those escaping a probable death sentence), weren't deporting war veterans who'd been brought to this country as babies and are now married to American citizens and have children who are American citizens (not to mention other DACA folks leading productive, law-abiding lives here), weren't tearing apart migrant families just to discourage others from coming here, hadn't reduced legal immigration to a trickle, weren't making it really super fucking difficult to come here even if you're an awesome, highly-qualified, educated immigrant, weren't enacting travel bans that sound suspiciously more about keeping out Muslims than keeping out terrorists, and didn't have a president constantly tweeting out whackadoodle xenophobic-y racist-y dogwhistle-y crap every day, I'd probably be more inclined to agree that, hey, we were doing okay, and perhaps would not be kvetching and clutching my pearls. I'd probably be a lot more prone to give my blessings to us saying "okay, we took in a ton of refugees here, and I'm sorry your job isn't so great in your country, but we took in all we can this year." But, yeah, we're not close to that. Hence why talking about it in this context seems to me like avoidance of condemning the really shitty stuff we are doing and not doing with regard to immigration. As it stands, it rather feels that as a nation, we are turning nationalistic and xenophobic, making excuses to keep out and drive out the brown folk regardless of how deserving they may be or how dire their situation. And given that we do seem to find money for all kinds of shit to enrich the already wealthy, the excuses for it begin to seem increasing pretty fucking flimsy to me. ETA: Similarly, the whole "we can't afford healthcare and social security" would be a shitload more convincing if we couldn't find money for tax breaks for zillionaires, massive military parades for Cadet Bonespurs, etc. Perhaps you are correct that it is currently not practical to live up to my beau-ideal of the poem on the statue of liberty. But we can do better. A lot fucking better. And we should.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 20:19:07 GMT -5
Laura Bush wrote an op ed in WaPo condemning the policy. t.co/yc3SLxAbdy?amp=1More at link. (I have always liked Laura Bush. a classy lady.)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 20:57:10 GMT -5
We'd never take that boatload of refugees now, by the way. You know how hard it is to get asylum these days? If you are forced to watch guerrillas murder your husband and then are forced to perform slave labor for them, you are considered to have materially aided them and out you go. reason.com/volokh/2018/06/08/justice-department-rejects-salvadoran-wo
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 21:56:41 GMT -5
Bill and Hillary tweeted against the policy.
ttps://t.co/uFpYfOMuXn
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Post by prozyan on Jun 17, 2018 21:58:46 GMT -5
Bill Clinton tweeting against a policy that was enacted under his administration. Cute.
Political club. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2018 22:02:05 GMT -5
cite for it being enacted under his administration?
Because I've read about eleventy million articles saying it was never the policy to separate migrant children from their parents before Trump.
And don't give me minors who came here unaccompanied, because that is not the same thing. I want an authoritative cite saying it was Clinton administration policy to take minor children away from their parents when they crossed the border, and that this actually happened. And not as a random one off of some bad border agent -- I want to see a cite for a systematic, official policy like this one.
I was around in the 1990s. I recall lots of unflattering press coverage of Clinton and his policies. Oddly, I can't recall anything about tent camps and abandoned Walmarts full of thousands of migrant children who had been taken away from their parents.
If it did happen, it's appalling. But I will not believe it without a cite.
(The Clinton political club includes Laura Bush, too. Cute.)
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