I have no issue with and support an increase in legal immigration.
I do not support removing non-citizen children from their environments once they are in the country or the parents of citizen children if they are non-citizens.
I do want a government that actively plans immigration levels based on what our democratic society agrees on and then enforces those plans.

#LiterallyHitler

I want to hope that the outrage over what's happening with these children, and the obvious use of them as political pawns by the administration, will be the straw that breaks the camel's back and turns the tide of public opinion against DJT. But nothing he's done yet has had that effect and I don't really think this will either, probably because like every other time, a week from now we'll be talking about some new outrage and forget all about these kids.

I appreciate that your intention is not to defend or to support this practice. And I think a conversation about immigration would be wonderful (and overdue) if only America wasn’t absolutely 100% toxic on the issue, with each side only able to see toxicity in the other.

However, I also think that the “what do we do about immigration tho” conversation is, in fact, not a necessary component of this more specific one. And I’ll hypothetical an example of why:

Imagine it was discovered that police officers were conducting extrajudicial killings of homeless people. Homelessness is a serious and growing problem, and one which we must address. However, “how do we fix our homelessness problem” would not be the most effective response to the issue of police killings because homelessness is not the CAUSE of the extrajudicial killings. An ethical and moral breakdown within the police force’s culture is. Removing homelessness (a worthy goal in the long run, but certainly a LONG RUN ambition and not something that can be done swiftly) would only be removing this particular opportunity to act, not the destructive culture, militant desire, or organizational failings.

Similarly, if a corporation is using financial misinformation and failing mental faculties among the elderly to coax them into terrible debt, the *immediate* response is not to redesign elder care across the country. That’s an admirable long term ambition, if you have it, but it’s a decades-long journey. The *immediate* response is to stop the exact cruelty which you have discovered, by stopping the bad actors engaged in it. Full stop.

These separations and child detention centers weren’t birthed by necessity. The country wasn’t on the verge of collapse before they were enacted. They were intentionally designed, as are the accompanying efforts to reduce legal immigration, with malicious intent. No real world solution to immigration can appease that maliciousness, and there's no evidence that the people behind it would entertain one.

As for immigration as a broader topic, I stand by what I said at the top: this nation is simply not in a place where it can have a healthy conversation about immigration. I do not believe that such a conversation can ever take place while one third of the country sees immigrants as criminals whose only desire is to destroy America by making it less white, one third sees them as purest victims who must all be protected, and the last third can't even be bothered to read a newspaper because staying abreast of politics is such a fucking burden to people born into comfort and exceptionalism jfc.

Diggum really working the text format toolbar this morning.

I actually don't think it's toxic anywhere other than Washington DC. Most Americans support a path to citizenship for DACA recipients, for example. Politicians are making it toxic, not Americans at large.

Most politicians would actually like to do these things, as well. The real toxicity exists in what are honestly fairly broad pocket populations, many of whom are crucial to re-electability for suits who might otherwise help to resolve the issue.

We could eat them.

Gas chambers?

Put them in boxes and mail them to Justin Trudeau?

THis is ultimately a deterrent for further asylum seekers so the GOP can cook the books in the election and say they’ve elimated illegal immigration or failing that Donald will get to say he did build a better wall than a real one and they’re all gone home. Some shit.

I hope this horror ends soon. But I hope everyone remembers come November. They’re gonna spin it out of all context and recognition for what it is.

Can we quote in context please?

We had answers to these questions a year ago. Your morality has to start with something. That's why I said the "eat them" comment. Cooking kids and eating them would be an efficient solution to the problem. We're morally opposed to that, so no one defends them.

Most people are morally opposed to putting kidnapped children in wire mesh cages, so whatever the solutions ARE, they aren't that.

No one here is suggesting that cages are a good idea. I was simply asking what is an achievable alternative for the government given the nature and scale of the problem. "Not that" doesn't help, it only makes people feel superior to whomever has the shitty job of figuring this out. And this is not kidnapping, don't devolve into hysterics, you're better than chud.

approval rating in November 2017: 36%

approval rating today: 42%

This guy could slap Jesus in the face and still have the "right" on his side.

I can't wait for November.

The "nature and scale" of the problem also suggests that illegal immigration is somehow spiking, which isn't true. There has been a seasonal spike of asylum seekers compared to the year before, which was an exceptionally low year, but apprehensions in 2017 are less than half what they were ten years ago, and that number was half of what it was eight years prior. This is an issue right now to the degree and toxicity it is because the president and the country has made it that way. We're not Europe in recent years, facing a mass increase in migration compared to prior years and having to work out the response. And "not that" helps, or is certainly understandable, when "that" is actually happening.

I think part of the issue that goes unspoken is how the average American feels about Mexico. I don't think Mexico is viewed as a valid option for someone seeking asylum. Why not? If you are fleeing family violence in Ecuador, why isn't stopping at the first safe country an option? Or is Mexico being written off as a safe country?

I don't have the US Government's Executive Branch at my disposal, so I don't know the available resources or the opinions of experts, but I might suggest ...

- hotels
- putting up actual walls in these warehouses and keeping families together
- deporting faster
- speeding up sanctuary and refugee requests
- speeding up immigration court proceedings

Geezes christ

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ts-council


Additionally, Trump stated today that he will cut funding off to those countries sending immigrants to the USA.

WTF is happening?