Harris will likely win

[laughing dog]

On what basis do you believe this?

The border is a mess, for one.

Ms Harris was assigned to find the root causes of why people are coming here, not to set or implement policy. Your rationale is evidence that you don’t know what her kob was, not that she did it poorly.

 

[Derec]

Blaming Kamala for not fixing the border is about as ridiculous as blaming Jared Kushner for not achieving peace in the Middle East.

Are you saying people have not criticized Kushner for his handling of Middle East?

 

[Politesse]

What is the "problem" with people seeking to enter the country by legal means?

Because these "legal means" were made up to pretend that the problem is lessened. I.e. there aren't fewer arrivals, you just made all of them "legal" by fiat.
In reality, it makes the mass migration problem worse because it's a pull factor for mass migrants

Again, what "problem"? If there's nothing illegal going on and everyone is being documented and monitored, what's the issue?

 

[laughing dog]

What is the "problem" with people seeking to enter the country by legal means?

Because these "legal means" were made up to pretend that the problem is lessened. I.e. there aren't fewer arrivals, you just made all of them "legal" by fiat.

That is illogical, an arrival is an arrival whether it is legal or not.

In reality, it makes the mass migration problem worse because it's a pull factor for mass migrants.

It gives a legal pathway not a guarantee . Legal entry makes it easier to get a more accurate count, and cuts down on the trafficking and deaths.

 

[Derec]

Ms Harris was assigned to find the root causes of why people are coming here,

And how did she do on that count?

 

[Derec]

Again, what "problem"? If there's nothing illegal going on and everyone is being documented and monitored, what's the issue?

So your "solution" to illegal immigration is just to declare them all legal?
And I guess your "solution" to retail theft is to declare that legal as well?

It is still a problem, because there are far more people wanting to come to the US than we can reasonably absorb as immigrants.
You can't have a country if anybody who shows up at the border can just come in. Which is what you "open border" types want.

 

[Derec]

That is illogical, an arrival is an arrival whether it is legal or not.

No. De-facto open borders, which is what left wingers want, is what is illogical. Open borders are as antithetical to the idea of a sovereign country as an open cytoplasmic membrane is antithetical to the idea of a cell.

It gives a legal pathway not a guarantee .

It is a de-facto guarantee because it is so difficult to deport people. Especially when they move to a sanctuary city.

Legal entry makes it easier to get a more accurate count, and cuts down on the trafficking and deaths.

It makes mass migration much easier and safer, which is a huge pull factor that makes the problem much worse instead of better. Arrivals should be discouraged, not encouraged by giving everybody who shows up at the border legal status to come inside.
Once mass migrants are here, it is very hard to deport them. Which means vast majority of them stay forever. But that is exactly what you and other leftists want - unrestricted mass migration that radically changes US demographics.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Blaming Kamala for not fixing the border is about as ridiculous as blaming Jared Kushner for not achieving peace in the Middle East.

Are you saying people have not criticized Kushner for his handling of Middle East?

No.

 

[SLD]

On what basis do you believe this?

The border is a mess, for one.

You know, this is such bullshit. Trump doesn’t give a shit about the border. He’s just using it to rile people up. The signature achievement of his first administration was a tax cut for the Uber wealthy and the large corporations. Not the border. It’s such a bullshit issue. If they wanted to stop immigration it would be easy and they’d do it. Start arresting the employers of these people. That will stop immigration. But you don’t ever hear calls for that solution. Why not? Because too many people are making too much money from immigrants and they don’t want it to stop. Trump will raise holy hell about it, but he won’t do shit for that very reason.

And are their more people wanting to come in now? Great. That’s because our economy is doing great. That’s why people are coming here. Big fucking deal. We need them. We face worker shortages throughout our labor force. We’re short 60,000 truck drivers, 600,000 healthcare workers. You want prices to come down? You want the economy to flourish? You want to keep social security solvent? Bring in more immigrants. They pay taxes, including social security taxes, they consume, spending billions inside our country.

Demographic changes are what drives the economy, far more than most of the bullshit solutions proposed by politicians. Stopping immigration would be one of the stupidest things we could do. Indeed a lack of immigration is exactly what has caused Japan’s economy to stagnate over the last several decades. Many other western nations are finding that as their population ages, it’s becoming harder and harder to support themselves. Money need a growing population. The answer is more immigration. This anti immigrant rhetoric is such bullshit.

 

[Politesse]

And I guess your "solution" to retail theft is to declare that legal as well?

How is immigrating to a new country legally a crime?

It is still a problem, because there are far more people wanting to come to the US than we can reasonably absorb as immigrants.

Why not? With the exception of a few popular liberal metropoles, we've nothing but space, and we need a workforce.

You can't have a country if anybody who shows up at the border can just come in. Which is what you "open border" types want.

Why on earth not? A generally friendly policy immigration has greatly profited the US, for three hundred years now, interrupted only by occasional frenzies of racist xenophobia that we rightly look back on with embarrassment these days.

 

[bilby]

Also, it’s one word, “turnout,” because the word is functioning as a noun. If it were functioning as a verb phrase, it would be “turn out.”

Hmm, fuck off. You're right.

That's some pretty fuckoff reasoning right there.

 

[bilby]

American democracy dispite its flaws, has always overcome its mistakes. It works.

That's true of every failed system, right up to the point where it fails.

 

[Ford]

On what basis do you believe this?

The border is a mess, for one.

If they wanted to stop immigration it would be easy and they’d do it. Start arresting the employers of these people. That will stop immigration. But you don’t ever hear calls for that solution. Why not? Because too many people are making too much money from immigrants and they don’t want it to stop. Trump will raise holy hell about it, but he won’t do shit for that very reason.

There's another reason this won't be implemented. A lot of the businesses that benefit from all that cheap migrant labor also are politically well-connected and make healthy donations to the "tough on the border" types. Kinda makes it unlikely that the sheriff who's fond of "rounding up illegals" will put the owners of that meat packing plant in zip ties along with the workers.

We had "employer sanctions" written into law here in Arizona. Twice. First with a "tough on illegals" bill and then the infamous "papers please" SB1070. Know how many business owners had to suffer the consequences? One. And they weren't arrested...just given a relatively tame fine.

Now about this part:

You can't have a country if anybody who shows up at the border can just come in. Which is what you "open border" types want.

Look around, Derec. This is a big reason why we "have a country" as it is today. A whole lot of people - from dirt poor workers like my great grandparents, to folks like Andrew Carnegie who would go onto be one of the richest industrialists in America - showed up on a boat long before we had today's immigration policies. Got a strong back? We could use ya, and don't worry about the language...you just move into this Polish/Italian/Irish neighborhood and they'll get you up to speed. Millions came here in the wake of the industrial revolution, and we even put a big statue in New York harbor to welcome them. The folks who came across the Pacific weren't welcomed as nicely, but (until the Chinese Exclusion Acts) were accepted and put to work building railroads with steel made by immigrants who worked at places immigrant-owned Carnegie Steel.

"But this is different! They're brown and coming across the southern border!" Yeah, that's not new either. A lot of the food that fed those rail workers was grown and picked by migrant workers from Mexico. You notice that there's a lot of places in the southwest and California with names like "Los Angeles," "Las Cruces," and "San Antonio," right? There are multi-generational families whose ancestors walked across the border or - in some cases - lived in Aztlan before it was even part of America.

Finally, don't give me this "open borders types" shit. Have you ever even been to our southern border? I used to cross back and forth into Mexico often, lived a mile from a port of entry when I lived in New Mexico, and I can assure you the border is not "open." The border crossings are busy (hundreds of millions of dollars in trade flows through them) but are also pretty well fortified. Pro tip: Do NOT mess with the border patrol...on either side. You WILL regret it. There's a lot of desert between the ports of entry, but that's patrolled by thousands of agents backed up by technology and for those of you who chanted "build the wall," while drooling over Trump, the simple truth is that building a wall is overpriced and ineffective. I lived in El Paso long enough to watch the barrier along the Rio Grande between downtown and Sunland Park go from a chain link fence with razor wire on top, to what looks the fencing around a maximum security prison complete with guard towers and spotlights. It looked impressive enough, but didn't do shit to stop people determined to get across. "But what about the Fentanyl?!" Yeah, somewhere around 90% of that is brought across the border at ports of entry by American citizens. Finally, you wanna know which administration built more barriers, spent more money on the border, and hired more agents by several orders of magnitude than the "tough on the border" Republicans? Obama/Biden.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Biden also extended parole programs to more people leading to more mass migrants coming in from places like Honduras and Venezuela.

Can you provide some documentation of this?

It's from the article Starwater posted in the post I was replying to.

The Biden administration has responded to record numbers of irregular border arrivals with a series of policies intended to encourage migrants to seek lawful pathways into the United States. It has allowed specific nationality groups such as Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to enter under special humanitarian parole programs, which allow them a temporary right to stay and work in the United States.

Work? Work where? Ask this guy:

He'll tell you where and what the effect was on inflation in the most nonpartisan terms possible.

There have been multiple attempts to fix it.

Increasing parole programs, i.e. telling many mass migrants to come through the front door instead of having to sneak in, is not really fixing the problem. It increases it because it's a pull factor.

The latest was the one Cheato torpedoed.

That part is true. But then again, I am not a Trump fan anyway.

"Pull factor"? Looking at that same migration policy.org website, this past September's numbers are down nearly 80% from December 2023's all time high. Why? Because the president has wide latitude when it comes to immigration. He can throttle it to help quell inflation and/or (and I'm just spitballin' here) political expediency.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ms Harris was assigned to find the root causes of why people are coming here,

And how did she do on that count?

The facts about Kamala Harris' role on immigration in the Biden administration

In her immigration role, Vice President Kamala Harris has mainly focused on convincing companies to invest in Central America and promoting democracy and development.

www.cbsnews.com

What exactly is Harris' immigration role?​

In March 2021, when the Biden administration faced the early stages of an influx in illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border, Mr. Biden tasked Harris with leading the administration's diplomatic campaign to address the "root causes" of migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, including poverty, corruption and violence.

In her immigration role, Harris' main line of work has focused on convincing companies to invest in Central America and promoting democracy and development there through diplomacy. In March of this year, the White House announced Harris had secured a commitment from the private sector to invest over $5 billion to promote economic opportunities and reduce violence in the region.

In fiscal year 2023, for example, Border Patrol apprehensions of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador made up 22% of all crossings during that time period, down from 41% in fiscal year 2021, government statistics show. On the flip side, however, the administration could point to the fact that illegal crossings along the U.S. southern border by migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have decreased significantly every year since 2021.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Harris didn't single handedly fix the maladies of the economies in Central America or stop the drug trade? She helped with some early investment steps, but the solution to migration, assuming it is a problem, is long-term investment and security in Central America. Not... close the border and pretend there isn't a problem and people won't try to get in still. Desperate people will take desperate efforts to have a chance at economic freedom. We used to applaud that shit in this country.

 

[laughing dog]

That is illogical, an arrival is an arrival whether it is legal or not.

No. De-facto open borders, which is what left wingers want, is what is illogical. Open borders are as antithetical to the idea of a sovereign country as an open cytoplasmic membrane is antithetical to the idea of a cell.

. You shifted the goalposts from arrivals to open borders.

It gives a legal pathway not a guarantee .

It is a de-facto guarantee because it is so difficult to deport people. Especially when they move to a sanctuary city.

Perhaps. But that does not it a guarantee.

Legal entry makes it easier to get a more accurate count, and cuts down on the trafficking and deaths.

It makes mass migration much easier and safer, which is a huge pull factor that makes the problem much worse instead of better. Arrivals should be discouraged, not encouraged by giving everybody who shows up at the border legal status to come inside.
Once mass migrants are here, it is very hard to deport them. Which means vast majority of them stay forever. But that is exactly what you and other leftists want - unrestricted mass migration that radically changes US demographics.

Please stop telling me what I want - you have no clue. And every time you call me a “leftist”, you sound Trumpish..

Unlike you, I don’t fear immigrants. Why are you afraid of “radical changes in demographics” (whatever that means)?

We need the labor. We need people here since our birthrate is low.

I want a beefed up system for processing asylum seekers and potential immigrants.

 

[pood]

… unrestricted mass migration that radically changes US demographics.

And there you go again, with your innate tribalistic racist ranting arguments.

U.S demographics are always changing, and have always changed. What’s wrong with that? Oh, wait — it’s because the demographics are getting browner, is that it? And … so what?

 

[pood]

I think I screwed up the quote tags and misattributed that quote to laughing dog. Sorry about that.

 

[Elixir]

Why are you afraid of “radical changes in demographics”

I think people should be required to answer that question before being allowed to vote.
Evasion should be rewarded with disqualification.
I would bet the farm, that less than 1% of fearful little white souls even know why they fear a change in demographics. Certainly they are given to believe that ethnicity and criminality are somehow tied together. (Trump sez. They don’t listen to trump, just unconsciously assimilate his fear message).

The fact that they swallow and subscribe to such horseshit, doesn’t lend any rationality to their terror of “others”. But their terror must be addressed, and as long as the crazy black lady keeps dismissing their irrational fears, she must not become President. At least the “other side” acknowledges the beats that their heart skips, whenever they are forced into proximity with the dreaded Others.